5 Awesome Colour Secrets Behind Website Conversions

This is a world full of colours and colour choices. A recent research report from Quick Sprout indicates, “90% of all product assessments have something to do with the colours you choose.”

In fact, colours are deeply connected with the emotions, feelings and behaviours of every individuals. The psychology behind colours say that it takes only 90 seconds for a customer to form an opinion about a product. The first few seconds are influenced by the colours of the product. Colours are critical to deciding our success behind a business. Therefore, there are no arguments on why people buy specific products from certain websites. It is all a matter of choice in colours. So choose the right colour for the right situation, and be sure; you win!

Nature of Colour Selection

When you are choosing the colours, you’ve to be careful about its selection and, keep in mind its purpose, situation and the audience. When talking about colour schemes inwebsite design, it includes graphics, borders, backgrounds, headline type, buttons, and pop-ups. The core principles behind designing a website are:

The right way

The right time

The right audience

The right purpose

Let’s explore the top five secrets behind colours and its choices in website design that leads to conversions.

1. Colour Choices for Kids Website

When designing a website aimed at kids, use bright and vivid colours that will visually stimulate them in an unforgettable way. You will want lots of bright and vibrant colours, probably some reds, greens, pink, blue and maybe a splash of yellow for a good measure.

Bright colours will easily capture and hold a child’s attention for long periods of time. Although colour choice is a primary factor in designing any type of website, this is especially true when designing a website for children since colours make a big impression on children’s young minds. Colour choices and combinations that would likely be rejected or laughed at when designing a typical website may be welcomed on a website for children.

2. Colour Combinations for Female Oriented Websites

There are no hard and fast rules for feminine colours. Women like blue and green but some are strongly drawn to the blue-green mix of turquoise. While blue remain a favourite colour for women, soft shades of blue makes it a popular colour for them. The shades of blue which are popular with women include cerulean, azure, baby blue, beryl, cornflower blue, robin's egg blue and sapphire. While, shades of green, turquoise, Purple and lavender remain their favourite. Among their least favourite colours are neutral brown, orange and grey.

Should you design a website where target audiences are women with only one specific colour? The answer is no, because, there are many more factors involved in choosing colours. Gender is simply one consideration and an equation. Feminine colours are not universal. Research acknowledges that colour on the web and colour in print differ in appearance, which can affect the symbolism, preference and psychological effect of certain colours and colour combinations.

3. Colour Combinations for Male Oriented Websites

There are no hard and fast rules for choices in colours for men as well. It differs according to situation, feelings and the many tints and shades with which each colours appear. It happens that someone who love a rich, royal blue can strongly dislike a pale, sky blue. So, a preference for the colour blue doesn't mean that every shades of blue is universally acceptable. However, some generalisations are possible.

The colour blue have a stronger preference among men in general. Similarly colour green and black are highly preferred. The least preferred colours are brown, orange, purple (neutral, warm, mixed colours). The preference with the green colour decrease as the age increases. Dislike towards brown and purple colour may decrease with age while, dislike of orange increases with age.

4. Top Colour Preferences for Websites

· Blue

Blue is one of the most-used colours, with a good reason. Because, it is a colour of choice and is liked by many people. It is a colour of trust, peace, order, and loyalty. Blue calls to mind feelings of calmness and serenity. It often is described as peaceful, tranquil, secure, and orderly.

Blue is, in fact is a colour heavily used by many banks and financial organisations. Some of the popular organisations that use blue as their colour of trade are Facebook, twitter and PayPal. But it is not a colour of choice for foodie websites. Because colour blue prevents anyone from eating more and has some evolutionary theory relating it to poison.

· Yellow

Yellow is a colour widely used as a warning colour. Hence, it is used for warning signs, traffic signals, and wet floor signs.

Although, it seems odd, colour psychologists have declared it as a colour of happiness. Some brands use yellow colour to show that they’re fun and friendly. However, since yellow stimulates the brain’s excitement centre, the playfulness or fun feeling may be simply a state of heightened emotion and response, not exactly sheer joy.

A heightened anxiety level during any website experience is not a good thing, unless it comes in small doses. Thus, a yellow call to action may create just a touch of anxiety that’s needed to make them click the desired call to action. Remember, use yellow in small doses unless you want to cause unnecessary anxiety.

· Green

Green is ideal for environmental and outdoor products. Apart from being a natural symbol, it is a colour which can improve one’s creativity.

If the focus of your website has anything to do with nature, environment, organic, or outdoors, green should be your colour of choice.

Green colour can also be used as a good call to action, especially when used in combination with the “isolation effect,” which states that you remember things better if they stand out. The technique works wonders for calls to action, and green is an ideal choice.

· Orange

Popular brands associate Orange as a fun colour that can create a sense of haste or impulse. It is said to have been helping people to “stimulate physical activity, competition, and confidence.” This may be why orange is used heavily by sports teams and in marketing children’s products.

Sometimes, orange is interpreted as “cheap.” If your product offering is cheap, or if you want it to be seen as such, orange may be a good choice.

· Black

Black is a colour that adds a sense of luxury and value to the product or website. It describes elegance, sophistication and power. It can communicate glamour, sophistication, exclusivity. It is a colour more often used by luxury designers and high-end e-commerce sites.

So, if you are selling high-value luxury consumer items on your website, black probably would be a good choice.

·White

While others are colourful with colours, chances are you’ll neglect white. Often regarded as a forgotten colour, White plays a vital role in the background. White space in your website will give your content some space and freedom. Most well-designed websites use it in plenty in order to create a sense of spaciousness and breathability.

5. Colour Choices for Calls to Action

Always use bright primary colours for your calls to action. The highest converting colours for your calls to action can be;

Why do you need a strong Data Protection Policy for your website?

September 6, 2017

In a world where ransomware, phishing and denial of service attacks are more common, the rising necessity to develop and bring forth strong data protection policies for every website is the need of the hour. Even after many cyber-attacks and large data breaches occured, many websites still don’t have a data protection policy in place to let your users know how their data is used and protected.

What exactly is a Privacy Policy?

A privacy policy is a document that discloses to your website visitors or users;

And, if you think your website don’t need a data policy, since you don’t collect any personal data from users, you may be wrong! Check here, how you be collecting your users data knowingly or unknowingly.

How you collect user’s Personal Data?

If you still run a website in 2017, you almost certainly collect personal data - even if you are unaware of it. And ignorance is no excuse for complying with the law.

...needs to tell their users how their data is being used, stored and processed.

Data often collected includes:-

Names & addresses

Email addresses

Phone numbers

IP address (e.g., via hosting logs)

Geo location data

These criteria applies to almost every website running in 2017. And that's exactly why your website needs a privacy policy.

How can you create a Privacy policy?

Generating a privacy policy for your website can be confusing and time-consuming. It is all the more worse to hire an attorney to do the same thing which will likely cost you £800+.

There's no one-size-fits-all policy template and your privacy policy needs to be tailored to your website to do the job right. Either, you should create your own privacy policy or hire an outside agency to do the same job in a cost effective manner.

Why Every Website Needs a Privacy Policy?

Many countries have laws that require you to tell your users how you process and handle their personal data. The simplest way to do that is with a privacy policy.

Ignoring the law whether in US or EU could be inviting you a civil lawsuit, an eye-bulging sum of fine or in extreme cases, even criminal prosecution.

Based in another country? You can still get in trouble, if you have US or EU users.

Conclusion

It may seem like overkill to create a complete privacy policy if you’re just collecting names and email addresses for your monthly newsletter. But, in the Age of Information, it’s important to respect the importance of personal data and the privacy rights of your website users. Being transparent about how you collect and protect data will not only keep you out of trouble with the law, but will also help to establish trust with your audience.

Top 8 Free Online Tools to Check If your Website is Responsive?

Have you checked your website's responsiveness with different devices- mobile or non-mobile? If you haven't , here we have picked up top 8 free online tools that are easy to use with one click.

Even if you haven’t made your website responsive, you could simply make a check on these tools to see how your website appears on these different device sizes. So that sooner or later, these tools will be useful when you make your website responsive.

Screenfly

Screenfly from Quirktools lets you test how your website appears on a variety of resolutions and devices from your desktop, laptop and tablet to your smartphones. To use, simply type the URL of your website or any website and then choose the device from the left hand menu.

The list includes computers (9 different resolutions), tablets (Samsung, iPad, Motorola and more), mobile devices (Blackberry, iOS, Android) and even three different resolutions of television. You can enable or disable scrolling and even rotate the display from landscape to portrait.

It is one of the best tools for testing a website without actually going to different devices. Take a look at this.

Responsinator

Sometimes, when you need to show off someone what it looks like a responsive web design, Responsinator is probably the easiest way to get a quick look at your layout on the popular device widths.

It’s fast, simple and provides the best experience that is quickly delivered. This site communicates the concept of responsive design so well is that it utilises silhouettes of popular devices, within which your website will be displayed.

All you have to do is, type in the URL of a website that you’d like to test. It doesn’t have to be a site that you own, so this also serves as a great way to investigate what other designers have done.

With Resizer you can input a custom URL, or preview selected websites and demos. Using the action icons, you can view a site across Material Design breakpoints for desktop and mobile.

Resizer helps designers and developers visualize which patterns will work best for them. To showcase some of these patterns, check the demo.

Am I Responsive

Am I Responsive is not a tool for testing, instead, this is a tool for quick screenshots and to visually allow people to “get” what you mean by a responsive design to clients or others. So that it is really important that you do the test on real devices.

This tool allows you to get a screenshot of your website on different devices quickly, and can be helpful in visually showing your customers what it means by responsive design when a suite of products isn't at the ready. All you have to do is, simply type in your website’s URL and click “go”.

Website Responsive Test

The Website Responsive Test Tool will let you freely test your website’s responsiveness across multiple devices with different screen sizes instantly in just simple steps.

What you’ve to do is simply enter complete URL of your web page and press ‘ENTER’ or click ‘GO’ to check how your website is visible on multiple devices.

This tool comprises a broad range of dimensions to help you view the web page on your elected screen resolution device whether iPhone, iPad, tablet, desktop or laptop.

This tool will help you to easily run your automated tests against real iOS, Androids, & other desktop browsers, ensuring you're testing real user scenarios accurately. With Cross Browser Testing, you can run multiple tests on multiple devices at one time and take multiple screenshots at one time.

All you need to do is enter your URL, select different devices, operating systems, and browsers and click run. It's that simple.

ResponsivePX

The process involved in Responsivepx Tool allows you to enter the URL of your site and to use the controls to adjust the width and height of your viewport to find the exact breakpoint width in pixels. This tool is extremely simple to use and has enhanced functionality. This web design tool helps designers create usable and responsive sites.

Responsive Design Checker

With Responsivedesign Checker tool, you can test how responsive your website design is. Check if your website fits and adapts to mobile, tablet, and desktop screen sizes. This tool is simple and allows you to check only the basic device size adaptability.

Got a Bad Design? Then get one responsive design!

If your website is unable to produce optimal results due to bad design, then plan to turn it into responsive web design, so that the produced results are beyond the expectation.

Which Tool Should You Use?

Many of these responsive design testing tools work pretty much the same way, so picking the right one over another is really just about personal preference. We would recommend you to test with all of them and then choose the one you like most. Additionally, you should also make sure to check whether your website is cross-browser compatible or not?

Do you have any free responsive web design testing tool in mind, that hasn’t been covered above? If yes, do feel free to share it in the comments section below.

Top 5 Reasons Why your Website Needs to Go Responsive?

August 17, 2017

More often, you may have come across the term “Responsive”, if you have had a chance to work with a web development company or have plans to own a website for your business.

Despite of the fact, that Responsive is related to web design and a website’s adaptability to reformat itself to the device it is being viewed, why is it so important? This blog might help you to shed some light into this question.

A website that is made responsive can be viewed on all devices such as mobiles, tablets, games consoles, TVs and desktop computers. This adaptability is so important because you can never be 100% sure which devices or screen sizes users will use to browse your website.

Statistics show that today more than 90% of the UK adults own a mobile device, and about three-quarters of all internet activity takes place on mobiles. Is your website made responsive and optimised for mobile to meet the changes?

Here are top five reasons why you should choose to go responsive:

Rising Mobile Usage

With the rise in the usage of affordable smartphones and tablet devices, the number of people who are spending their time on the internet has increased. Creating a website that does not cater for mobile and tablet users mean that you are ignoring a significant proportion of people who will be searching for you. If you are not providing a wonderful mobile experience for them, they will leave you for someone who provides it.

More Business Return

According to some of the recent statistical reports, 67% of the mobile users are more likely to buy from a mobile friendly website. When users try to interact with non-responsive websites, it is going to badly affect the business it deals with. Most of the users feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that’s not mobile-friendly. So, if your website offers an excellent mobile experience, users will be more likely to convert into customers.

Getting New Customers

If you’re looking to improve your business, you’ll need new customers. Most of the customers today come to your website either through online searches or through social media from a mobile. If a new prospective customer lands on your current website through the above mentioned search possibilities, they’ll naturally expect you to have considered their experience when viewing your website on their mobile device. They may be used with easy browsing options provided by other websites and expect your business to offer the same level of experience. If you’re putting them off by presenting them with a poor experience on their device, you’ll likely lose the business and the new customers.

Go Responsive Across Major Devices

The term ‘mobile devices’ are most commonly associated with smartphones. But, when it comes to the market share of a single size screen device, it does not hold more than 20%. On average, one person uses about 3-5 different devices to consume digital content, which highlights the need to have a responsive website that is able to adjust to all screens and devices. In fact, it’s essential to ensure your site is equally optimised across all devices such as smartphones, tablets, desktops and other possible displays, if you are looking to maximise profit.

Google Favours Responsive Sites

If you’re looking to rank your website in Google, preferably, you’ll have to look for what this search giant favours. Google gives more preference to websites who are responsive than who are not while displaying search results. Because, Google looks for user satisfaction and therefore, you’ll have to do the same for your users. If your website is not responsive, it’s less likely to be found when people search using a mobile phone or other mobile devices. Less traffic to your website means, less opportunity to sell your products or services.

Since you are living in a digital era, it truly is a business necessity to allow visitors on mobile devices to consume your website comfortably. They’ll expect it and will think negatively of your business, if you do not cater to their needs.

If you want to get started on creating a bespoke responsive site for your business, give a call on 020 8363 4905 or use the contact form.

How to tell a convincing story about your business in 60-seconds Video

July 27, 2017

Creating videos can be intimidating, especially if you’re new to it. Whether you’re telling a story or want to market your products or services, the intention is to captivate our audience and make them believe in the story we tell.

It is said that a one minute video can make an impact 1.8 million words could make. Do you have the time and energy to write 1.8 million words?

If you think you can’t make it happen then, online video marketing is the single most practical solution for your marketing time and energy. If you are a small business owner or involved in doing business yourself with so much consideration for your marketing budget then, online video marketing is something you should think about.

Before you hit the start button, here are a few things to keep in mind. Let’s check:

Short Attention span:

If you have noticed, most people have short attention spans these days, like 8 seconds or short. Most viewers aren’t going to watch through your 5 minute video or even a full 1 minute video.

The statistics show that you’ll lose about 1/3 of your viewers by 30 seconds, 45% of them by 1 minute and almost 60% by 2 minutes. And this number does not get better even with mobile phone users exceeding not more than 5 minutes.

The point here is, you have only 10 seconds or less to hook the viewer and convince them that your video is worth watching and your service or product is worth considering.

Shorter Videos (15 seconds) are Sweeter:

Recent research reports says videos that are 15 seconds or shorter are shared 37 percent more often than those that last between 30 seconds and 1 minute. If you make your videos longer, that stat goes down. Those shorter videos are only shared 18% more often than videos of longer than 1 minute.

Time Matters:

It is reported that 16% of YouTube videos get embedded, linked or shared on Tuesdays between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., which means time matters.

If you have read through the above points, let’s start with the creative.

Behind every successful explainer video, is a well-written, engaging script. Without the right foundation, the rest of the creation process will go in vain.

So what can you do to make sure your video catches up with your audience? It all starts with a proper preparation:

Knowing your goals

Knowing your audience

Knowing your message and,

Knowing your call-to-action

Now, here are the most important things you need to consider before starting your Video Script:

1.Keep your explanation short

The length of your script will depend on your audience. If you want an internet surfer to check on your video, it should be compelling and address their needs.

2. Convey your message in the first 30 seconds.

Reduce the message of your entire video to one sentence and get that sentence somewhere in the first 30 seconds of the script. This will tell your audience what to pay attention in the video.

3. Speak directly to your audience.

Use personal pronouns like “you” and “your”.

Show them things they care deeply about. I.e., how we can help them to solve their problem or improve their own bottom line.

Don’t waste time in telling them what they already know. Focus on what they need to know about you that will bring them to trust you and to take the action you want them to take.

Make friends with them and they will be far more likely to give you a chance to sell them something.

4. Use the right tone.

Use the tone in your video with a clear picture of your audience/customer in mind. Write a one sentence summary describing why you are making the video and what you want the viewer to do at the end of it. (You may decide you want an office head talking, a brief classroom style presentation, a bold outdoor documentary or a colourful animated review.)

The tone you choose for your video will then drive your choice of setting, narrator or cast, tempo, pace and type of dialogue for the script.

5. Tell a story.

Most explainer video scripts;

Present a problem (Steve is worried about his business, not enough customers),

Introduce a solution (Steve decides to create a website, do branding and social media campaigns),

Explain how it works (Design Direct UK is all affordable, quick ...blah blah blah)

Drive viewers to action (Sign up or contact).

Dry facts such as statistics and definitions are okay in the classroom, and for students. It is always good to avoid lifeless content whenever possible. Instead, use the power of the screen to show your audience actual people your company has helped, or benefits your services have bestowed on your customers.

The better you tell stories about yourself, the more likely your viewers are going to understand what your company is offering and what it can do for them.

6. Limit your words in explainer videos

Keep the dialogues between 125 and 150 words a minute. Even if you are able to speak 200 or more words per minute on your own, keep in mind that the voiceover needs time to breathe, allowing viewers to absorb what you’re saying (this is true if the content is particularly dense or technical in nature).

7. Check what others feel

When producing an explainer video, take the time necessary to do it right. Get feedback from friends and co-workers, and make sure it’s engaging and easy to understand.

Now, that you have created your video and got it running. The results may vary according to your video content, the audience selection, preference and their needs.

However, statistical reports say that;

26% looked for more information about the subject of the video

22% visited the website named in the ad

15% visited the company represented in the video ad

12% purchased the specific product featured in the ad

Tracking the Results

Effective video marketing has to be engaging right from the start, but how do you know, what is happening with your video? That’s where video analytics comes in. Detailed video analytics will tell you who’s watching your video, how long they stay engaged and exactly where they click away. Armed with that information, you can sharpen your message and target it more precisely. If you haven’t started your own video marketing campaign, it’s time start. There’s nothing to lose and about 400% more profit just waiting for you.

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Have you run a successful Video campaign? Share your tips in the comments!

Why Chatbot is an essential tool for your website?

July 14, 2017

How many times in a day do you check your WhatsApp? An average of nearly 200 minutes in a week or more or lesser? However it may, you can’t skip a day without really peeping into what’s happening with your WhatsApp group or checking if any of your friend said a hi to you.

While, an industry analysis point out that nearly 3.5 billion people actively use instant messaging app compared to many other mobile apps that are rarely used. Among the instant messaging apps, WhatsApp remains popular and most used.

This is one of the reasons why Chatbot is an essential program that needs to be part of your product or Website. Now, let’s check into the details of Chatbots.

Chatbots-What is it?

A chatbot is a conversation robot or a computer program that can responsively interact with people. They are essentially used as a program that forms part of a website or product in dealing with customer support.

How can Chatbots help you?

Chatbots can help us in many ways. For instance, a customer comes to your website. This person may not have enough time to check the whole details of your website to get what he is looking for.

This is when Chatbots can be an advantageous option for your visitor to know what services you provide and how they can get it etc. This chat experience will give your user an experience which is direct just as you may give it in a face-to-face conversation.

Major benefits of Chatbots

It allow you or your users to flawlessly interact with multiple apps from one location. Just as you may interact with a virtual assistant.

A chatbot can help a customer find the right way with a quick query if they have landed on the wrong page.

If your customer is looking for a specific case study about your service or product, chatbots can help them deliver the right content after asking a few questions.

Chatbot is a fantastic tool to frame your keywords based on your customers query.

Chatbots can deliver help when your customer needs something 24/7.

Chatbot act as channel of building link between you and the customers.

In short, Chatbots can help you save time, money and labour when used to handle easily automated tasks or low-pressure customer-facing situations.

With IOT or Internet of Things projected to include over 50 billion connected devices by 2020, chatbots allow for voice navigation on wearables, smart cars, and other internet-enabled devices.

Despite of these advantages, one major drawback is that there are no new updates or developments to keep chatbots relevant.

What are the major types of Chatbots?

Today more and more businesses think about ways on how to make use of chatbots for their customer support instead of the old ways of email ping-pong.

Chatbots vary in type and complexity. Some can only reply to basic questions or word-for-word requests, while others are programmed to understand variations of the request. Some chatbots can handle productivity tasks and customer service.

This chatbot helps you learn useful skills, you could use at work every day. Walnut analyses a large set of data points to discover skills relevant to your role and helps you acquire skills everyday by watching a 2-4 minute video.

This chat bot which speaks only Italian assist you in choosinga gift for your wife, girlfriend, or mother.

Similarly, there are more than 1200 chatbots to help you with weather updates, culture, and geography. Make the right choice of chatbots that correctly fit the product or service you offer.

Conclusion

The rise of mobile messengers and extension technology of artificial intelligence has made Chatbots a powerful tool for the brand-to-customer communication that helps in reducing costs and resources. Vendors and retailers need to rethink your communication strategies to strengthen your presence in the channels where your customers wants to be.

10 Simple Ways to Boost your Online Sales

May 23, 2017

On the internet, you cannot assume right which strategy would bring you more sales or results. So there is only one single solution, try on everything until you know the best strategy that works. Just as in the case of a website, you have plenty of options to promote it either through SEO (Search Engine Optimisation, PPC (Pay Per Click Advertising), Social media, e-mails etc… The bottom-line of every strategy you may use should be focused on selling your business in a way that is not pushy.

Here are some of the bestselling strategies you could try out on the go.

1. Offering Single Product or Fewer Products on the Home Page:

If your homepage displays too many products or offers, try out focusing on fewer or single product. Instead of many products with little details, the focus on fewer products with more copy would do. In this way, you can more clearly communicate with your customers the key benefits, and the queries they might have.

While you go ahead with a few, don’t do away with other products. Offer other products from a different web page or web pages or through a follow-up offer. The only way to find out if this strategy working with your target audience is to test it.

For example, make opt-in sales offer on the homepage and test run it for two or three weeks to check whether it is making any improvement in sales.

2. Grow the list of Loyal Customers by Re-positioning the Offer:

The opt-in offer is your tool to gather the essential details of your customers and subscribers. This will help you to stay in touch with them and to sell your products and services directly. But, all these matters on how and where you place your offer.

If you aren’t making a long sales offer, the top left side of your homepage is an attention-grabbing spot to place the opt-in offer. This will give your offer the enough attention it deserves before any visitor scrolling down the page.

While a long sales offer could be followed in the second page once your customers’ attention is grabbed by your credentials, experience and testimonials from happy customers.

You may also try placing your opt-in offer with a sign-in on every page as in like a pop-up so that your customer strikes them every time. The more sign-up opportunities you provide the more subscribers you get.

3. Making an Impact with Hover Ads:

Hover ads are like pop-up ads but are not really pop-ups. Hover ads are effective because they put important information right in front of your targeted visitors. Hover ads can be used as a medium to place your opt-in offer and you can test to see if that boosts your subscription numbers. You can also make a comparison of how many clicks you get through a hover ad vs. through a normal link on your home page.

4. Give a feature-rich Headline:

The headline of your offer is the first thing a visitor reads or notices. It should have sufficient attention grabbing features for the visitor to read the rest of the copy.

A successful headline should always have a problem that a visitor is going through and stress the main benefit your product or service can offer in resolving this issue.

The first paragraph followed by the headline should give a detailed Explanation of the problem. This shows the customer that you care for them and feels a sense of trust.

Once you feel that you have done it, start introducing your product or service which is a solution to this problem. You will see a boost in your sales if you succeed in it.

5. Establish Credibility to your Offer:

There are several ways to add credibility to what you offer. But people tend to rely more on reviews from other similar folks. Instead of you saying that your products are awesome, it better to combat it with real-life situations. So, including feedbacks from a customer who have previously used your products or services will help them make better decisions.

Also, don’t forget to include a section in your copy to outline your credentials, experience and other credible details which will make you look qualified to effectively carry out any responsibilities that your visitors/customers may have.

6. Focus on Customers not you:

When you make a sales offer, change the focus of stressing more on you. Give your visitors/customers a sense of feeling that the offer is made for them. To establish this sense of feeling you can use references such as “YOU, and YOUR”, instead of I, OUR and WE etc.

7. Create a sense of Urgency:

If your sales copy can create a sense of urgency in the visitor such as a limited period offer, you tend to attract more subscribers.

To achieve this you can try including urgency creating copies through ways such as:

Offering limited quantity bonus

Giving offers only for a limited quantity of your products or services

Offer a limited-time price discount for customers to buy within certain date in order to qualify for the discount.

Offer free additional bonuses if visitors buy within a certain time frame.

8. Add product images to invoke a sense of desire:

Instead of plain texts or copy, real images of your products put your visitors in a chance for the test to buy it. "Seeing is believing" so, try to place images on top of the page or see placing them below near to call to action or on the order page. Carefully analyse the difference with each trial and finally stick on to one which produces the best results.

9. Format the copy for Scanners:

Most visitors will not read every word of your sales offer. They just scan it from start to finish. If your copy cannot catch their attention while they scan, you are going to lose them from becoming your customers. So try highlighting the key benefits that will grab the attention of people who scan rather than read. Test check after changing and including formatting styles such as:

Using bold, italics and highlighting points to emphasise the most important benefits of your offer

Centralise important texts to draw them out of the whole body of text.

Use bullet lists (like this one) to emphasise key points

10. Fine-tune the Follow-up process:

Following up with existing customers is just as important as selling a product. In fact, tests show that 30% of customers will buy again if they're given the chance. You can generate more sales through a follow-up process with your customers and subscribers using auto-response e-mails. This will take several contacts before anyone buy from your site. It can help in attracting more repeat business.

An immediate follow-up after new subscribers sign up will increase their chance to return to your site the same day they subscribe. It helps you develop profitable, long-term relationships with them and allows you to offer "backend" products relating to their original purchase.

“Improve your Password habits”, comes the reminder on World Passwo

When was the last time you changed your online banking password? One month ago or three months back, or even much before that? Are your passwords strong enough for a hacker to not to make a guess?

Passwords hold the keys to our digital life. We use them very often to unlock our mobile phones, access bank accounts and private records, do online shopping, check e-mails, social media, medical records and more. We may have many passwords that we make it simple and common for all the major accounts so that we remember them easily. NO, it is wrong!

Passwords may be easy to remember, sometimes funny, but common or bad passwords will put you at risk. The problem is that simple and common passwords are easy for cyber criminals to guess. Below given a list of such common and bad passwords, please check. This year’s World Password Day falls on May 4th which comes to reminds us of the importance of these little crypto-keys and the role they play in making sure we keep hold on the important things in our lives. Identity theft is everywhere, and your passwords are the first digital line of defence.

What are the most common/ bad passwords?

Please make sure your passwords doesn’t fall among these. The list is taken from the records of online security app firm Splash Data’s Top 25 "Worst Passwords”

23456

password

12345678

qwerty

12345

123456789

football

1234

1234567

baseball

welcome

1234567890

The passwords such as 'starwars', 'princess' and 'solo' inspired by the 2015's biggest film release, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, are also found to be among the common vulnerable passwords.

The “World Password Day” is not just a day of celebration, but reaching out to maximum people to promote better password habits. In this era of frequent online security threats and hacks on sensitive personal data, security experts recommend password management systems to stay safe in the cyberspace.

Common Mistakes in Password Creation

Whether out of convenience, forgetfulness or laziness, most internet users aren’t good at picking secure and unique passwords. The researchers estimate that 90% of user-generated passwords are vulnerable to hacking. Even the “secured” passwords provide minimum protection in a world where massive password leaks are common.

The biggest mistake people make online is reusing passwords.

The most clichéd password usages for e.g., “abc123”, password123 or a pet’s name are a hacker’s dream when trying to crack into everything from bank accounts to online records.

Passwords hacks happen when many companies do not encrypt the passwords they store online. The companies like Sony and Anthem are a few recent examples that garnered a lot of attention in a data breach.

Multi-Factor Authentication for Passwords

Encryption can make a big difference that even a relatively simple encryption algorithm would take years for hackers to unencrypt using a basic computer.

While many companies fail to encrypt their users’ sensitive data, they can do a better job by securing their accounts with the help of multi-factor authentication (MFA). This will add a protective layer to the users’ passwords. Check how you are benefited through the use of MFA.

MFA provides the user’s login with additional identification factors, such as a face recognition, fingerprint or a one-time code delivered via text message. If a cybercriminal gets hold of a user’s login information, in MFA enabled accounts the hacker will have to go the extra mile of entering a pin number. Here the advantage is the hacker not only able to guess the pin but cannot gain access to the user account.

How to Choose a Password- The do’s and don’ts

One of the simplest ways to access someone's online account is to guess a password. A hacking software tends to try the most common codes first. When a code is guessed, in an attempt to access other details, the hackers also tend to try other online services the victim may use, such as banking.

The don’ts

Avoid using your favourite sports for passwords such as 'Baseball' and 'football'.

Avoid Birthdays, dates, anniversaries and years of birth in passwords. These are easily vulnerable details with the help of your personal information.

Avoid using common names such as ‘Michael’, John, Jennifer and celebrity names in passwords.

Don't re-use passwords. Relying on one password for all could prove particularly serious.

Avoid any password using only numbers, especially sequences.

The Do’s

It is advised to use a combination of upper and lower case letters along with numbers can create memorable passwords. But choose to be different by including symbols such as &*#@$ etc. For example, as in a sentence “I am 6 foot tall and stout”, use the first letters of each word- “Ia6-ftas”.

Short words with spaces or other characters separating them are easy to recall and are relatively secure if seemingly random words are used.

Use a password manager which can generate secure passwords and store them online

The best way is to use two-factor authentication, which will send a text with a code or use an app to verify your log-in.

On this “World Password Day”, what you must do is, make your passwords stronger, coming up with nonsense phrases you can remember, adding spaces, changing letters to numbers and the like to create something no hacker will ever be able to guess.

When is the right time to re-brand your business?

April 28, 2017

Rebranding existed ever since brands evolved. Choosing to rebrand a business has never been so easy. If a business chooses to rebrand itself, there must be some solid reasons behind. What are they? When should a brand consider itself to rebrand? Let’s check into the reasons.

Most oftenbranding changes are unnoticed unless these are some serious makeovers. For example, in 1985, Harley-Davidson opt for a serious brand makeover when the company was in serious danger of going out of business. In spite of the fact that they were the most recognised brand in their market, Harley-Davidson had to redesign their bikes for smaller, more manageable and affordable bikes to attract a new generation of riders. The strategy worked and Harley reclaimed its place among the leaders in motorcycle brands.

Before going into the reasons of rebranding, you must clearly understand what it is.

What is rebranding?

It is a marketing strategy adopted mostly by established brands where there is a change in name, symbol, design or terms with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors, stakeholders and competitors.

Rebranding can also be referred to a change in a brand that may own several sub-brands for products or companies.

Rebranding can be applied to any products new, mature or even that are still in development.

What is mostly changed in the rebranding is a company logo, image, name, marketing strategy and the themes selected in an advertising.

What is the Purpose of Rebranding?

It is done with the aim to repositioning a brand/company from negative connotations of the previous branding or when they want to move the brand upmarket or a new board of directors take charge.

Rebranding can happen through a deliberate change in strategy or from unintentional, unplanned or emergent situations.

Reasons for Rebranding

When there is a Decrease in Sales:

If you are experiencing a decrease in sales and customers, it may be the right time to rebrand your business.

When you want to Stand out from Competition:

If your company want to set it apart from that of competitors and want to attract more customers and more promising employees, then a rebranding is desirable.

When the Looks don’t match the function:

When your looks don’t reflect what you are or what you deliver, it may be time to rebrand. It is important to match your looks with what you offer.

When you go wrong with the Target Audience:

Sometimes it can happen that you attract wrong customers. If your company is no longer attracting the customers you want to be attracting, it may be time to rebrand. It will help in switching your target audience and the benefits you offer.

When there is a change in Management:

When companies bring in new management with a different set of values in doing and delivering business, it may also be a good time to think about rebranding. It is advantageous if the new management can show their audience that something is new and fresh.

When you want a functional Change:

Consider about rebranding when you have a new function added or when there is a change in what you were doing. For example, BP changed from ‘British Petroleum’ to ‘Beyond Petroleum.’ Rebranding can help to bring an awareness in people on what you offer now.

When shouldn't you rebrand?

When you have a new management, but no change:

If you have a new management but haven’t changed anything that your company was doing previously then, do not think about rebranding. Rebranding without changing the purpose, direction or value proposition of the business, will do no good.

When you have rebranded recently

Branding is not something that should happen every often. You need to give some time for your brand and message to spread through the marketplace. Don’t rebrand every often because people will get confused.

When you have internal issues in the company

Rebranding should happen only when all the people in a company is united and think towards one goal. Rebranding cannot solve internal problems in a company. It happens once you get to act together.

When you can’t afford:

Rebranding your business may require you spend some amount of money. When you rebrand, you have to formulate new messaging for your business cards, brochures and signage. If your financial condition doesn’t permit, leave it.

Market conditions are not static. You will face competition and your business position in the marketplace will need an uplift. What’s critical is that you don’t change the whole business, instead, ensure your brand continues to develop gradually with the company.

Why Web Development with Laravel is Fun?

April 4, 2017

If you ask most of the Web Developers, how do you describe the experience of working in Laravel? Expect an unexpected answer that, “it’s really fun”!

Some developers may say, they haven’t experienced the same power and flexibility without complexity with any other frameworks. Despite giving an energetic feel, Laravel is a serious option for commercial work, especially if you are trying to do something a little out of the ordinary.

What is Laravel?

Laravel is a web application framework in PHP with expressive and elegant syntax, for constructing everything from small to enterprise-level applications.

Most of the Web developers believe that development must be an enjoyable, creative experience to be truly fulfilling. As you'll find, Laravel is a joy to use, and just might make you enjoy writing PHP again.

Laravel makes the web development process lot easier with the common tasks used in the web projects, such as authentication, routeing, sessions, and caching.

Features of Laravel to make the Web Development Enjoyable

There are certain things that make Laravel stand out as a PHP Framework. They are:

Simple Methods:

The first thing that will strike any developer about Laravel is how simple it is. The usual experience with any big frameworks is that you end up spending too much time. One of the outstanding features of Laravel is that it brings the fun back into PHP development. Laravel provides built-in features that are more than enough for you to focus on the more interesting parts of your app, and without having to worry about the boring basics.

Eloquence

Laravel uses its own OR (Object Relational) Mapping tool called Eloquent. It works well while allowing for more advanced features like eager loading. Unless you have a really crazy model, the chances are Eloquent will work well for you. Laravel has Redis support built in. You can also build your own queries with Laravel’s Fluent Query Builder. Laravel come with a handy DB migration tool too. It’s not super-sophisticated, but it is useful when you change your plans.

Bundles

Laravel has just over 80 “bundles” ranging from a scaffolding tool called Bob to a very simple profiler bundle, which adds the PHP Quick Profiler to your site. Bundles are hardly at the volume of Symfony or Drupal plugins/modules, but its impressive work for a framework that barely existed a year ago. It is far better to have a few well-maintained plugins than a sea of plugins.

Here are a couple more things that you will enjoy in Laravel

Documentation:

Documentation with Laravel is really nice. Laravel API Documentation Generator is a cool package that we can use to automatically generate our API Documentation. Documentation with Laravel is as good as it really is.

Behat:

Laravel really suits Agile and BDD. It would be lovely if Behat/Mink were included out-the-box in the same way unit testing is. To be fair it’s not hard to get Behat tests up and running alongside Laravel.

If you’re looking for a new, simple, solid, fresh and well-supported PHP framework then Laravel is just that. It’s lightweight enough that it doesn’t get in the way of your planning and development work. But it does still offer plenty of structure and handy built-in features.

5 Reasons why a Web Design Portfolio can help you win more Customers!

March 22, 2017

If you are a web development or a web design company, or a freelance web designer, looking for more web design projects, a Portfolio of Work you have done in the past is essential. Clients will want to see your capabilities from the samples of the work and form a quick impression.

Your portfolio is the single most important piece of marketing you have. It conveys to potential customers what you can do, how you do it, and the benefits they will reap from your hard work.

If you have some of these completed works, it’s important to organise all in one place. This will give you a good reference point for what they can provide you to work on.

1. Arrange the Portfolio on the Focused Industry

If you are focusing on any particular areas, for example, website designs for small business, then make sure you are highlighting it on your portfolio. Focusing on a specific market niche can be highly beneficial.

If all of your clients are from a common industry, it is easier for you to anticipate their needs even before a meeting. For example, websites designs for schools and Kindergartens.

The Reason

If someone browsing your website is looking for a good e-commerce web design, may not want to see all of your non-commercial website works, brochures you have designed (unless, of course, you’re known for that and you want to do more of it).

Want to focus on a new area?

If you are trying for a transition to a new area, for example, logo design on T-shirts, then you must isolate any prior graphic design work you’ve done earlier.

In the design industry, seeing is believing, so if you’re able to show the proof of what you have done then, people will take your word for it.

2. Show the Best Work

At first, it might seem like you want to showcase everything you’ve ever done so that you can prove how competent you are in designing. But this will be a great mistake you are making. So select the best of your work and show only less.

When people are looking for a web designing service or designer, they don’t have time to dig through hundreds of portfolios and then subsequently dig through all of your work. Impressions are formed instantly, so a small selection of best quality work should be focused. Your portfolio should be only the best of you. But, still if you have a strong belief that all of your work are of high quality, then displaying it can create a powerful impact on a visitor.

3. Your Portfolio should tell a Story

Every piece of work you choose to display in the website portfolio should narrate a story, either visually or with words.

If you’ve made a website for a local health spa clinic that’s known for quality skin care treatments, the aesthetics and the message should correspond well across. Websites are a communication medium, so clients want to see work that really says something.

Sometimes, you may want to consider turning each portfolio piece into a case study. If your website visitors want to know more, allow them to click through the additional information on each work.

Tell your visitors about the needs of each client, what problems each client tried to overcome, and how the solutions you provided worked for them.

Telling a short story that has a beginning and a conclusion will carry the visitors’ interest throughout. Make sure to stress on how you played the role of a problem-solver.

4. It should be simple and Easy to Navigate

Time is a valuable resource for most business owners. So, they don’t want their time to spend in browsing through your complicated portfolio presentation.

Your portfolio should be given easy navigation to details. Don’t get too creative with the navigation or trying something you’ve never done before. Chances are, it won’t impress them. A visitor must be able to view your work immediately and it should include only the best ones. Give it a simple and elegant presentation that upon clicking on a work, the whole background should be faded to act as a frame for the one clicked.

Also, make sure that you present your website Portfolio well across all web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox. Some versions of the browsers may give your website a broken experience to the users. The simple look can resolve cross-browser issues.

5. Maintain Freshness

A great portfolio needs to be pruned every now and then according to the relevance. Selectively remove pieces of work that are no longer representative of your best work. This can help you win new works and at the same time expand your portfolio collection. If the money or the project isn’t very motivating, you should still make sure you’re injecting quality work.

While the functionality of the website is more important than the quality of the design, here is an additional point to add with. The people will also look for customer reviews and case studies from clients to know whether they are actually happy with the service you have provided. Make it a point to collect testimonials from your clients and display it on your website.

8 Reasons Why Cloud Computing will Benefit your Small Organisation

March 16, 2017

The popularity and acceptance of Cloud Computing today has lot more improved from the earlier years. As more and more organisations started to adopt cloud mainly due its cost effective nature to address the financial challenges. While there are many proposed taxonomies for cloud computing, the most prevalent taxonomy that can be used by organisations looking to move to on-demand hardware and software services are:

Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas)

Software as a Service (SaaS)

Platform as a Service (PaaS)

Before moving on to how Cloud Computing will benefit businesses and organisations, it must be clear,

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing is computing based on the internet. It differentiates itself from physical computers or servers in a building where a downloaded software is used to run applications or programs. Cloud computing allows people to access the same kinds of applications through the internet. For example: Facebook. When you update your Facebook status, you’re using cloud computing.

Cloud computing is much more than just making use of on-demand servers if organizations want to capture the full benefits. It means moving to global applications, not just enterprise applications. A major shift will take place within entrepreneurial organisations which can either represent an opportunity or a risk.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

Whether you’re using a bunch of apps to help you manage your workload, chances are that you rely on cloud computing to solve the challenges faced by small businesses. In short, cloud is quick changing into a normal event.

It is natural if you doubt why so many businesses are moving to the cloud. It’s as a result of cloud computing will increase potency, helps improve income and offers more advantages. Check out how Cloud Computing will benefit your organisation.

1. Flexibility/ Agility

Cloud-based services are ideal for growing businesses. If your needs increase it’s easy to scale up your cloud capacity. Likewise, if you need to scale down again, the flexibility is maintained. This level of agility can give businesses using cloud computing a real advantage over competitors.

2. Disaster recovery

Disaster recovery solutions are needed for all types of businesses. But smaller businesses lack required cash and expertise. This is often an ideal situation than the reality. Cloud is now helping more organisations buck that trend. Small businesses are twice as likely as larger companies to have implemented cloud-based backup and recovery solutions that save time, avoid large up-front investment and roll up third-party expertise as part of the deal.

3. Automatic software updates

The specialty of Cloud Computing is that its servers are off the premise or invisible. The suppliers of cloud services usually take care of them for you and roll out regular software updates, including security updates. So there is nothing to worry about wasting time maintaining the system yourself. You could instead focus on the things that matter, like growing your business.

4. Cost-Effective

Each year, every organisations will have to invest a pretty good amount of money for its hardware. Cloud computing cuts it out by paying on the go through a subscription-based model. The setup and management is a lot friendlier then although, it’s never been easier to take the first step to cloud adoption.

5. Real-time Updates:

The cloud based system give your team the access to edit and share documents anytime and from anywhere. A cloud-based workflow and file sharing apps help them make updates in real time and give full visibility of their collaborations.

Businesses can offer more flexible working perks to employees so they can enjoy the work-life balance that suits them, without productivity taking a hit.

6. Document control

If before cloud applications workers had to send files back and forth as email attachments to be worked on by one user at a time. Sooner it would end up as a mess of conflicting file content, formats and titles. When everything was moved onto cloud, the files are centrally stored for everyone to see the original version of the document. Better visibility means improved collaboration and a healthier work result. If you’re still using the old way, it could be time to try something a little more streamlined.

7. Data Security

Cloud computing gives you greater security when issues like theft or loss of an expensive gadget happen. When your data is stored in the cloud, you can access it no matter what happens to your machine. You can even remotely control your lost gadget to wipe out the data without reaching it in wrong hands.

8. Competitive Advantage

Moving to cloud gives you access to a technology that sometimes the companies bigger than yours may not have. This will allow your business to act faster than big, established competitors. Pay-as-you-go service and cloud business applications mean small outfits can run with the bigger ones, while remaining lean and nimble.

9. Environment Friendly

While the above points benefit your company, moving to cloud is beneficial to our environment by minimising the energy it is used, leaving less on carbon footprints. When your cloud needs fluctuate, your server capacity scales up and down to fit. So you only use the energy you need.

A Cloud Message:

Moving to cloud computing is a disruptive change that departments in information technology (IT) will soon face. Cloud computing has begun to take effect on the modern enterprise. IT managers must learn how to give as well as take information in this new, shareable environment, while still protecting their company's interests.

Innovative companies will take advantage of cloud computing, and reinvent themselves as unstoppable forces in their markets. Those who don't take advantage of this revolution will become quickly outdated, or perhaps out from the business.

How to Grow Audience Using Paid Social Media Traffic?

What most of the people think about paid social media traffic is, it is a cheating method to quickly grow the likes and shares from spam businesses.

But what you need to be aware of is that, if these tools are properly utilised you can quickly grow your brand, audience and the revenue.

You cannot simply start using a paid social media traffic method without enough information and learning. Lack of adequate knowledge may lead to a huge financial loss. Before starting, you must know how to use it and when to use it.

Mostly, people are confused about when they should start spending on paid social media traffic and clicks. It’s just that matter of ‘timing.’

Many famous people are in the opinion that we must use the paid social media traffic for not to buy likes or fake followers but in buying a genuine and relevant audience.

Fake followers and likes will lead to getting poor quality audience that has no interest in your business or company.

Having large followers is not likely to help your business or brand. It is also considered as an unethical approach to social media marketing.

Then, what is the best practice to use paid social media traffic?

The paid social media traffic should be used for paid ads and marketing your content to the relevant audience. The target audience will be people who are actually interested in what you are selling.

Which means you will be reaching in front of the audience who are genuinely interested in what you offer. With this approach, you can grow your business.

When should you start using paid social media traffic?

There are many instances when you must start using the paid social media traffic, such as:

1. When you are starting to build an audience from scratch:

You can build your audience through an organic approach, which is a slow growing process that takes time. A newcomer will struggle to get to the right audience without anyone recognising it.

This initial slowness can be reduced using paid social traffic approach. The time taken for organic traffic building is reduced to half with a paid social media.

2. When you want to enlarge your business in a new location or to a new audience:

You could use paid social media traffic when you want to extend or enlarge your business and customer base in another location.

This happens only when you are successful in running a business in your area and is sure that you have reached the right audience.

The paid social media traffic will help you to target new demographics and promote your brand in new locations.

3. When you want to grow your Social Profile within the Similar Audience:

This is when you already have a good number of followers and want to drastically improve the number of the audiences even quicker than the organic following.

This can be done, if you are a celebrity or if your brand is famous among the most audience. So improving your social media profile paid social media is the way to go to achieve quick results.

4. When you want to get your Content in front of People Doing Organic Search:

Use the paid social media traffic to get your content in front of people who are already familiar with you. This will help in improving the frequency of your content to be reached in front of the people who are your followers. This will help your business and your audience to be updated about a new product or offer you are currently running.

Before starting with a paid social media strategy, you must keep in mind that you have a clear understanding of the real stage of your business and the goals you want to set with social media.

If you make use of the paid social traffic in the right situations and in the right way, it can accelerate the growth of your business in a way that you can’t imagine.

How is your business benefited through Clever Blogging?

February 17, 2017

The other day someone asked me, do your blogs make any improvements in the business and how is it benefited?

This was actually a question that made think for a while. Although I could answer him fairly, I thought of making some investigation into the topic. After some research and clarifications, I found some clear points and the next time if someone asks me, I could clearly state the reason.

Generally speaking, blogging is something that most people or companies now do often than it was done in the earlier days.

Still, people are not aware that having a blog is an important thing for a business or person to advance online. Even though ‘blogging’ has been so popular, most people don’t have the idea on what makes blogging so powerful, helpful, and beneficial. To make it clear here are a few points stating the benefits of having a blog section in your website.

Blog Generate Traffic to your Website

I’m sure you can be the one who wants more visitors to your website. Now think of the ways that people come to your website.

Some may directly type your website name on to the search. But they could be someone who already knows you. It doesn’t help in bringing any more traffic than what you already get.

You could be paying for a list of e-mails, which is indeed an expensive approach that could buy you only a click. In this case, you can only hope that they will open your e-mail and click on your link.

Another way that you could win traffic is the Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC), for which you pay for each click a user make on your ad. Your ad will run until your money is over and the traffic stops.

So, what is an inexpensive way of driving traffic to your website? The answer is simple-- blogging, which is then promoted through social media and then captured by search engines. Here's how it works.

Blogs give a boost to your Web pages

Your website will have many or few pages. But how often do you update them all? Most probably you may not even have had a look at them all for months. Well, blogging is the only way you can update all these pages, and get them noticed.

Each time you post a blog on your website or somewhere else (in an article site or in a blog posting platform), you get one more page indexed. This means you use your opportunity to show up in search engines and to drive-in traffic to your website through organic or natural search. Frequent blogging with fresh content shows Search engines like Google, Bing and others that your website is active and worthy to be ranked high.

Bring new Audience through Social Media

Every blog post you write must be shared through social media which will help your business to be found by a new audience which would otherwise not know you. So make it a practice to share each post through popular social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube etc… In this way, you can not only gain a new audience but also grow your social media reach through these audiences.

All the above points meet one common point i.e., help with driving in new traffic to your website.

Blogs can Convert Traffic into Leads

If your website is getting traffic through your blogs, use this opportunity to convert the traffic into leads. Take advantage of your visitor’s interest into an enquiry of your products or services. You can do it in a very simple way by adding a lead-generating call-to-actionin every blog post.

The calls-to-action can lead to things like offering free e-books and whitepapers, free fact sheets, free webinars and more… Basically, these content assets are aimed at helping the reader to take some action through the information shared.

To put it simply, here we are making the process more clear:

A visitor comes to your website==>He sees the Calls-to-action for a free offer==>Visitor clicks call-to-action and gets to a landing page, where they see a form to fill in with their information to receive the offer==>Visitor fills out the form, submits information, and receives the free offer.

You need to realise the fact that every reader of your blog may not be interested in the offer and cannot be expected to convert into leads. Just keep on blogging with fresh ideas.

Business blogging Establishes Authority for your website:

Constantly updating your prospects with the blogs for which they would be seeking information can help you establish an authority in the eyes of your customer. The best business blogs can help a confused customer or lead when he is seeking an answer for it. This will turn advantageous to sales persons to quickly clear things and in turn receive a business deal.

If people come across blogs written by people in your company, it helps you establish more authority and the customers to build trust in you.

Blogs help you achieve results for a long-term

Assume that you are posting an informative and helpful blog on your website, and you are sharing this post in the social media, while others get a notification through their e-mails and RSS feeds. Your active followers happen to read the post and some find it helpful to them. The number of views you receive for your post matters because each time one clicks the chances for your blog to show up in search engine results increases, provided you have the keywords included.

As the days pass on, your followers forget about your post and everything subsides in the buzz of new things. But, your post will remain in search engines for days, months and even years. If someone searches for something similar to what you have mentioned in your blog post, the chances are that your blog post can still be found and get more views and leads too.

While you must keep in mind that every effort may not receive immediate results. Over the time you can count on results without any additional investment. So the effort you put in a blog post today is not wasted, but help you generate leads in the future.

Why SEO is necessary in designing a Website?

February 7, 2017

People often search for products and services online before making any decidable purchases. If their search query was relevant to your website, it will show up in the search results. Thus your business requires a website that will be ranked on the first/ first few pages of the search results. There are certain things that must be considered while you’re designing a website. You need to consider the audience, the browser, the device, the aesthetics and the search engines.

We all know that web designers can create beautiful, eye-catching websites. But what is good about all these if no one ever visits your website?

This is when and where SEO specialists can help their designers understand the role played by SEO in web designs and web development process.

The Connection between SEO and Design

If you are a web designer, most probably you’ll be focusing on aesthetics, browser size, User Experience and device restrictions. But you miss SEO in the list. Well, it’s time to add it. Do you know why? The data suggest that 80% of website traffic comes from search engines. If your web design doesn’t go with SEO, it is more likely that your client’s website is going to get little or no traffic.

The reality is that:

SEO specialists have to redesign a large portion of the website to ensure it meets the requirements of search engines.

The so-called “user experience” will not happen if the website doesn’t get any traffic.

Most search queries online are for unbranded keywords.

Your Client’s Understanding on SEO

Most of your client’s knowledge about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be very limited or never heard. They assume that their website will rank in searches once the design is done. They probably won’t realise that SEO is an additional service. So, it’s up to you to explain the ins and outs of Search Engine Optimisation and how it is going to help their design.

The clients may say that they need a new website to give a boost to their business. But what they want is more leads which cannot be achieved through a website designed with no regard to SEO.

It isn’t difficult or expensive to design a great looking website that meets SEO requirements. But, it is about having the basic understanding of the rules and acknowledging that Search Engines are how customers find the website.

Basic SEO Guidelines for Web Designers

Search Engine Optimisation falls into two main areas, which are:

On-page SEO: It includes about 30% of SEO inside the website which consists of web architecture, coding, semantics and the content.

Off-page SEO: It takes up about 70% of SEO which includes link building and content marketing.

As a web designer, On-page SEO is what needs to be focused while doing the designing part.

Knowing your client

Essentially there are three main client types. How you design and build your site will depend on determining which category your client falls into.

A client who wants his website to be ranked in Google, Yahoo and Bing for non-branded keywords. In this case, you need to work with an SEO expert while you concentrate on the aesthetic side.

A client who wants a creative site and want to rank for the brand term. In this case, you’ll have to design a website with some SEO requirements in mind.

A client whose business comes from referrals and offline marketing. Clients who come under this category can be lawyers, doctors etc. They might be interested in generating more business through Google and other search engine rankings. So you’ll have to design a website with SEO requirements in mind.

Combining SEO in Web Design

The next time you’re designing a website combine SEO as a part of the process, and not an afterthought. A website with a strong SEO foundation will prove a successful business tool for your client and the happy you.

7 Web Design Trends in 2017

January 9, 2017

The much awaited New Year 2017 has arrived. Being an ardent fan of stunning web designs that offer a unique look, I looked with hope and eagerness to know what trends going to change the web design scenario this year. As usual, there were a few people to come up with their predictions and beliefs on “what is going to change the Web Design trends in 2017”?!

Assuming on what is being justified as the web design trends of 2017, and what would continue to be the same as in 2016 will remain as it is and should be watched with speculation. One who is familiar or has been in the web design industry for some time will know what may take place in the coming days.

Furthermore, one can not exactly predict what will happen since the web is a unique environment that is constantly changing and evolving. With this in mind, here I have some points on what can be believed as some of the most important trends to look forward in the next 11 months.

· Focus on Content

The year 2017 is predictably giving more importance to content. This means removing all the other distractions such as headers, footers, sidebars, ads on banners and sidebars, pop-ups, calls to action, comments, social media buttons, signup boxes, etc. All these things seem to clutter inside our websites which in reality is taking the attention away from the entire point of a web page: the content. Although it took years of hard work, it is time again to get back to the heart of a website— the content!

· Imaginative Designs

If you look through some of the websites, you may notice the basic design style is common to all. It doesn’t differentiate anyone in terms of creativity and style. Most of the websites have followed a flat design style which emphasises on the minimum use of stylistic elements that is focused on a minimalist use of simple elements, typography and flat colours. To avoid the similarity, there needs to put an end to flat design styles by following an imaginative pattern.

· Creative Headings

There is going to be a change in the way we used to design headings for websites. The basic heading styles followed by websites such as all caps, centred, justification, san serif etc…may change to follow a more creative style. So thinking to change the usual pattern is more like going to the creative side. It is a more welcomed way to be unique in your design. A design is something that needs to be creative and appealing, so it is expected that designers will start digging to bring out unique style to the headings in a website.

· Duotone Imagery

In the pursuit of staying more on brand, some websites have started to experiment with duotones (two colours), three or even more colours on images and graphics for their websites. Duotone imagery that combines a couple of other colours has proven to be a nice update to the old and tired gradients and solid colour areas.

· Simplified Navigation

Websites need to be updated when trends change. Only then one can keep pace with others in the competition. It was learnt long back that people cannot be enticed with the fancied image sliders that came standard at the top of every website homepage. It failed to keep users attention. Unique ways in layout to bring multiple sets of content at the top of the homepage is to be tried and tested.

· Mobile First Approach to Design

As web environment is constantly evolving, the mobile-first design approach is gaining priority than working for the bigger ones first. This approach isn’t new since it has been around for few years since mobile phones were used as a primary device for browsing the web.

Since mobile browsing is gaining popularity with most people having a smartphone, more companies are realising the importance of having a site that effectively delivers content on a smaller screen, and so are rushing to get along with others.

Considering the mobile-first model, brands are rethinking about a strategy that equally fits both small and large screens in terms of content, design and user-friendliness. This strictly includes what to communicate and what not to since the smaller screens limit the content a user can easily view at once.

· Emphasis on landing page Designs

Nowadays, it is seen that the design is more focused onto a landing page where the user will have all the necessary information to accept or reject a service or offer. While every website needs a home page, as content marketing is gaining more importance, the marketers will want to direct traffic to dedicated landing pages to better target their visitors and their needs. These pages will be as well designed and thought out as others on the site but target the visitor much more.

Conclusion

2017 is sure to see some of the great website design trends. These design trends have the likelihood of changing the appearance of some of the best websites and designs trends that are already part of the change and changes that are yet to come.

Why should you opt for a Bespoke Website Design?

December 25, 2016

When talking about a “Bespoke Website Design”, the first thought that comes to mind is an old Cliché “Thefirst impression is the best impression”. Originating from England the adjective word ‘bespoke’ has blended itself with other words to call it a bespoke website, just because one can custom built a website often from scratch and suit to the specific requirements of a business or organisation.

Everything from a layout, database integration and other extra features added according to the client requirements are to form a bespoke or custom made website. It takes time and effort for a team of skilful designers to a build bespoke website that is comparatively more expensive than websites designed from templates. Although it is a bit expensive, the end result can be a unique looking website that is more flexible, impressive and generating more visibility in the search engines to more sales.

A well-designed website plays an integral role when starting a new business or trying to grow an existing one. Your company image and branding plays a very decisive role in helping you stand above your competitors. Thus creating an online presence through your website is considered as valuable from a marketing perspective. So creating that very first impression of your business through a bespoke website design is helpful in developing your potential customers, clients or investors.

There are generally two options open to a business while deciding on to have a new website. That is to opt for a bespoke custom website design or use a ready-made template design. There have been strong recommendations for opting for a bespoke website design over template designs. Let us check into the reasons behind the argument to opt for a bespoke website design.

High Visibility in Search Engines

Choosing a bespoke web design over template designs can give your website long term effect and therefore the chances are high in getting found by search engines. The longer you remain on search engines the chances are more that people will find you and link to you. These links help in boosting your search engine rankings. Since Custom designed websites are search engine friendly, it will help to pace against your competitors.

Adaptable to Print Media and Online Marketing

While template based designs worth only for print media, the bespoke web designs is adaptable to both print and online marketing techniques which help your site to appear on the front pages of search engine results.

Continual Professional Support

If you choose a custom designed website instead of a template design, it will offer you ongoing support, dedicated assistance and expertise from professional web developers.

High Quality and Uniqueness

A custom designed website assures to give you a high-quality website with a unique appearance. So that you don’t have to worry about having similarity with someone else’s website. The uniqueness combined with high quality will give you individuality to your business in the broad market. Because the design experts create it completely from scratch, coordinating with you every step in the process. Consumers are taken up by the impressions your online websites create, and so driving in potential customers.

Functional and Flexible:

Unlike template designed sites, in bespoke websites, everything is created flexibly to your preference. You can flexibly make changes, add new pages or design and edit contents whenever necessary. It will also allow for the integration of e-commerce functionality and a lot simpler and far quicker than amending a template.

Consistent with all the web browsers

A custom website is built by the talented, expert web developers who will design the site using the latest HTML & CSS code to W3C standards. Web Designers will also check that your bespoke website functions correctly and consistent within all browsers. Because coding will have the biggest effect on it. The blogs can be designed to mirror your website design to maintain consistency.

Reasonable Hosting Fee

Although the initial cost of template websites may be low, the monthly hosting costs keep on escalating. This would mean that over the course of 18 months you will be paying the same amount for template website just as you may have to pay for a bespoke website that charges a reasonable hosting fee.

Even though you may at first be tempted to use a template web design, when it comes to quality, usability and maintaining a professional image of the company, a bespoke website cannot be out beaten.

Why Digital Marketing will play an integral role in your Business?

December 12, 2016

The world around is changing rapidly with everyone progressively going digital. Being in a digital world gives you more exposure to bring up self-ideas with unique USP to start your own business. When you depend on digital methodologies such as social media and other internet-friendly methods to market your business, digital marketing is established knowingly or unknowingly.

To utilise it in the right way, you must have a clear understanding of what digital marketing is and how it can effectively be implemented into your business.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is the promotion of your products, services or brands using digital technologies such as:

SEO

Content marketing

Social media

Online advertising

E-mail direct marketing and more

The digital Marketing techniques and tools offer business owners regardless of whether small or large, the best chances for business competition, survival and business growth.

Why is Digital Marketing considered important?

Digital marketing gives equal opportunity to all

Whether you run a small or medium enterprise, the chances are equal to compete against big firms who are already in the field. Using effective strategies even small businesses can attract targeted traffic of the big firms and improve sales. Digital marketing enables one to engage with multiple customers from anywhere in the world.

Cost-effective than traditional marketing

When compared with traditional marketing methods such as newspaper ads, flyers, banners, brochures etc., digital Marketing provides a more cost-effective marketing channel that delivers results. Small business companies are largely benefited due to this advantage.

More conversion and revenues

With digital marketing, you can measure how many people are engaging in your website. How many incoming traffic gets converted into leads, subscribers or sales. Without conversion, all website traffic would mean nothing (depends upon the intention of a website).

Interaction with customers can give you an insight of what your targeted audiences want. This vital information will help you to offer better experiences and make good relationships with your customers.

Builds brand reputation

You can build your brand's reputation by keeping up the communication with your customers through website, e-mails and Social Media. Answer their doubts, offer them proper help and make sure you build a long-lasting relationship with your customers through digital marketing channels. Without trust and confidence of the customer, companies will not succeed. The satisfied customers of your products or services are more likely to recommend it to others.

Provides better ROI for your marketing investments

With better branding, Digital Marketing can provide a better Return on Investments (ROI) than traditional media channels. Digital Marketing help to track and monitor the process easily and audiences can provide contact information, subscribe to a newsletter or make a purchase.

Ensures business survivalonline

Digital Marketing helps to survive your business online. Apart from many kinds of visitors, targeted few will make a purchase from your site. If they are satisfied, they will come back for more on a later date. This means targeting the right kind of people will deliver the right kind of results for your business.

Digital marketing is going to have greater importance in the near future as it is going to integrate many new technologies in channels that will change the way customers interact with products or services offered. A proper utilisation of all these digital marketing channels for your business can reap great rewards.

Is SEO Necessary for a Business to Market Online?

November 22, 2016

Many critics say that SEO is dead by 2016. Many controversial discussions are running around this topic to state whether SEO is actually needed for a business to market online? But we need to clearly understand whether it is a myth or a reality?

Old SEO Practices vs New SEO Practices

The old practices of SEO are dead and are born again as a new system with new practices. If the old practices of SEO were meant, keyword stuffing in a bad quality content (Which is written only with the intension of stuffing keywords and do not have the necessary information for a visitor), spamming and buying large numbers of backlinks.

The new practices of SEO are done with great care and putting in lots of sincere efforts. If earlier Google was manipulated by websites, lately it was changed with a shift in the algorithm. For some years now, Google has been updating its algorithms hundreds of times every year. With the Penguin, Panda and Hummingbird updates, “Google has managed to get rid of many artificial page rankings and keyword stuffing.” Google is now stricter over websites that want to rank high or be found with the typed-in keywords. What are the things that have changed with these updates? Let’s check!

The new algorithm has improved the search rankings with high-quality websites on top. The latest updates have “made high-quality content vital, urging relevant context and semantics within the content.” Does this mean SEO is less important than content? No, not at all. Both are equally important along with other things!

Effective SEO Strategies in the New Google Age

Now getting ranked in search engine results requires solid SEO practices. These practices will make sure that your brand is being found organically. The industry is still considered an important piece to the way that Google will evaluate and rank a website. So what should be remembered is that you must not only create valuable content, but it should keep up the high-quality and be published with solid SEO practices.

Here are some quick guidelines for some effective new age SEO practices:

Keyword placements:

The use of more visitor friendly long-tail keywords and consistently displaying them throughout the content, title tags, images and description will help you compete with larger brands by ranking in google for more specific searches.

On-page Optimisation:

Google doesn’t give much importance to Meta tags, but Meta description is still considered very effective. Your Meta description should be limited with-in 150 characters to provide information that searchers might find valuable and which encourage them to click your site.

Although, while writing Meta description including keywords is less effective, leaving it blank is also a bad idea. This is what Google will display as a snippet along with the results of a search term. Use meta-description as an opportunity to draw someone in, as it is the first visible content to a visitor and tell them what you have on offer. So you’ll have to find a way out to get them click on your website link.

Your Title Tags is another important thing to consider. This acts as a determining factor for a visitor to click on your link. You have very limited space (about 70 characters) to write your title tags, so use it wisely. Take care that the titles are not misleading. Even if your titles are attracting, once they find your content isn’t what they were looking for, it is a reason for them to immediately leave your page. So provide relevant information that will help them remain in the page. Disappointing your visitors will increase bounce rates, and Google will penalise you if bounce rates move into a dangerous level. Having minimum bounce rates is one of the important metrics search engines use to rank the websites.

More Webpages with Quality:

Google considers a website with many quality web pages. In an attempt to increase quantity or the number of web pages, you must not compromise on the quality of content and design of every page. All the factors necessary for a web page should be included in all the pages.

Image Optimisation Plays Vital Role:

A website with visuals can be appealing to visitors. While uploading an image, Google suggests you use descriptive titles and captions along with a keyword can also be useful. The use of unique images rather than a stock photo will have more chances to be seen in search results.

XML Site Map:

An XML sitemap is not only important for SEO but also for a good user experience. Sitemaps enable nonstop communication with search engines. Sitemaps exchange information with search engines on what the website contains in terms of content. This will help website visitors to get quick information in the process of web crawling.

Mobile-friendly Websites rank more Better

According to Google, people on average check their phones more than 150 times a day. This happened after the invention of smartphones. People use mobile phones than computers as it is handy with easy access to the internet. If your potential customer uses a mobile phone to browse and finds your site is not easy to use, they’re five times more likely to leave. To avoid losing out in these crucial moments, you need a site that loads quickly and is easy to use on mobile screens.

Voice Search Options for Future:

As time progresses, the need to bring in real speech patterns in searches will come with users more on mobile. So the future searches must be ready to recognise these voice patterns in the websites and must incorporate the real speech patterns into the keywords such as long and short tail keywords. This option will allow those who search by their voice to search on phrases that are spoken and receive accurate results. For example, when typing in a search, people may use the search phrase “best Italian restaurant London”. If they are using a voice search on a mobile device, they would speak something that is more along the lines of “London’s best Italian Restaurant”. Though it makes a slight difference, it will affect the way that the search engines display results.

When combined with all the above-stated features, SEO is essential to provide a smooth user experience for your website and thus enable an effective online marketing. Good SEO practices allow users to find, access and absorb higher quality content much easier. This means SEO is not dead but exist in a stronger way that your businesses need them.

Why Inbound Marketing is good for your Business?

November 3, 2016

The term “Inbound Marketing” can be new to many of us while some are already in search of an answer. To put it in simpler words, “Inbound Marketing is an intelligent way of marketing your business without spending much or any money using the paid or natural search engine marketing methods”.

The great difference with Inbound Marketing is, it is a clever strategy that is used to attract visitors and convert them into potential customers. For example, if you want to adopt the Inbound Marketing methods for your business, you will have to really work hard with your brains to understand your customers and act accordingly. The result is, your intended customers will come to you and buy the product rather than you disturbing them to buy your product which they don’t want.

These methodologies applied on the internet helps in meeting people who are already in search of an answer to their questions. For example, if you are searching on the internet for an answer on “how to write good content for websites?” you are quite sure to find hundreds of search results from which you will have to choose the best answer that satisfies your query.

How to start with Inbound Marketing Campaign?

The first best thing is to create Web pages or ads that will show up in search results when someone searches for something relevant to your business. You need to do a lot of background work in your content within an integration with SEO keywords to show up in searches where you will have many competitors, like in a race

Create relevant content with authors for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). The more content you have on your website, the more are the chances of getting found on relevant searches. The content is the key that attracts your potential customers to your business.

How is Inbound Marketing done?

The Inbound marketing methodology usually follows 5 steps i.e., attract traffic to Convert, Close, and Delight and then repeat the process over time.

Attract:The first phase called “attract” is when people are totally strange to your brand. What you have to do is build brand awareness and reach new audiences through blogs, and social media contents to draw traffic to your website.

Convert: Once people come to your website seeking for information, your goal is to “convert” them as your visitors by enabling them to share their contact information with you. Which means your content should be catchy and informative to hold the visitors and tempting to look into other pages of your website or page.

Close: Now you have visitors contact information (e-mail or phone number), which is a lead. What will you do with this? Those people who visited your website may not be ready to purchase from you due to many reasons. Your duty is to guide them and instil in them a desire to buy your product (Close phase) by sending them timely content.

Delight: Now they have become your customer. Don’t simply ignore them after they purchased your product. Follow up with them and keep your relationship alive through encouraging e-mails and pouring in special offers or gift vouchers etc.

Repeat: At all these times you need to make sure the product/service you delivered them was satisfying. Only then it will encourage them to make another purchase and repeat business. A positive feedback will let them refer your business to their friends.

This is a simple inbound methodology that most modern businesses follow these days and earn loyal customers and promoters. Just as you have the realisation that “Rome was built not in a day”, Inbound Marketing is not a quick-achieved scheme. It takes some time to achieve very good results for the hard done job.

6 Important Content Strategies for a Successful Website

October 28, 2016

Can you think of a website without content? Most probably not. A website without content is hard to find and difficult to understand.

If you want to attract maximum visitors to your website, it should necessarily have a very good content along with a very good design. Only then you can expect your prospective or ideal customers to buy your products or services through the website.

As early as in 1996 after the internet was established, Bill Gates declared, “Content is King”, foreseeing the vast opportunities the content would hold in future.

He said, “Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting.”

The phase of the internet has changed from the early 90’s to a large hub of more than 1 billion websites in the world. The competition is high on search engines to get each website found in the search results of the first page. There are certain factors that should be taken seriously into consideration while you are writing for websites.

Here are the 6 most important things that a Good Content Writer must keep in mind before starting on a website content.

Short attention Span of a Visitor: A visitor or reader who comes to your website will span through your website only for a few seconds. These initial moments are very important. It determines whether they want to spend more time on your website. The content on the website, especially the homepage should be relevant and invite attention for a reader.

Originality in Content: Copying content from other websites is not considered a good practice. It can harm your website’s ranking in search engines, especially Google can penalise you for it. So having an original content not only improves your site’s ranking but also have a positive impact on your business.

Follow an Inverted Pyramid style for Information: Inverted Pyramid is a style followed by newspapers. They provide the most important information on the first few lines of a news story then followed by the least important. The home page of your website should include the most important details a customer is looking for. This will invite them to look at other pages of your website.

Simple and Precise Content: A web page content should be very simple and self-explaining. We must write in a way that even a 12-year-old child can understand. The reason is nothing but the web visitors don’t have time to think about what is written on their hunt for useful information.

Avoid Content Overcrowding: Most people only scan through your website for important details. The research suggests that only 16% of website visitors read web pages word-by-word. Make sure each and every detail from headlines to image captions and sub-headlines communicate effective or selling messages. While the bullet pointed content can reduce wordiness and make it easy for people to glance through the content.

Use of Familiar words: writing skills, and it should sound fancy, special and keep up the standard. What people look for are the words that A common belief among most people creating content is that a website is a platform to show off theirwriting skills, and should sound fancy, special and up to the standard. What people look for are the words that sound familiar to them. Use of familiar words such as cheap, affordable etc., will tell them that they are in the right place. Make sure to check in the Google keyword Tool to know the popularity of most important words we use.

It really takes the effort to write a simple, clear and persuasive web copy. The above-mentioned points can help in the next time you write for a website. If you do it clear, it is much easier for your website to stand out and be found on the web.

THE BIGGEST BREAK THROUGH FEATURE OF ANDROID 7.0

July 13, 2016

The final release of the latest Android version is due in a few weeks. Version 7.0 Nougat has been eagerly awaited by mobile app developers around the world, as it opens doors to a lot of possibilities in mobile computing.This article is about a break throughfeature of the OS.

The official public release of the latest stable version of the world’s most popular mobile operating system from the word’s most admired tech company is due in a couple of weeks, or so. Yes, we are talking about Android Version 7.0 Nougat, the 14th version of Google’s operating system for mobile devices. Mobile app developers from around the world are all eagerly waiting for this significant OS release as, from a developer’s point of view, it opens doors to a lot of possibilities in the arena of mobile computing.

Multi-tasking Comes to the Mobile Screen

From the user’s perspective, the most awaited feature is the split screen functionality, allowing two applications to run in the foreground simultaneously, side by side. This unlocks multi-tasking, the inability of which was the great disadvantage associated with mobile computing, as opposed to desktops and laptops. The coming of multi-tasking adds a lot to productivity for those who rely heavily on mobile devices for work. Business travellers use tablets more often than their laptops and a good percentage only use tablets on the go. The ability to place two windows side by side or running two applications in the split two halves of the screen was a feature that professionals like stock brokers were anticipating for a long time.

“Though die-hard android mobile application developers had previewed multitasking in action through developer previews, they did not actually expect it yet. It comes as a pleasant surprise”.

It is not very uncommon that features contained in developer previews being dropped from the final stable release. And leading android application developers had earlier predicted unanimously that it would take even advanced API levels to achieve multi-tasking. Yet, with API level 24, Google has successfully pulled it out. No wonder it comes as a pleasant surprise to the developer commune and even for them, this is definitely the most break throughfeature of Android 7.0.

Behind the Name Nougat

For the first time in its history, Google had asked users to suggest a name for its OS release. Google loyalists could suggest and vote for names of sweet food items starting with N, through android.com website. It is a practice at Google to codename its Android stable releases with names of sweets and confectioneries. Before voting was closed, Nougat was the most suggested name, leading way ahead of other close contenders such as Nutella and Neapolitan Ice Cream.Nougat is the French name of a brittle confectionery originated in southern Europe, made from sugar or honey, egg white and nuts.

Google had even planted an Easter egg designed around it, in the fourth developer preview. The “N” insignia had an emblazoned “Namey McNameface”, a reference to another name suggestion drive that went off-centre. Earlier this year, the Natural Environment Research Council had asked the general public to suggest a name for its latest research ship, through a similar online campaign. The outcome was “Boaty McBoatface”, a name first suggested by James Hand, the famous radio presenter of BBC Radio Jersey, Channel Islands. The funny name quickly became viral and was voted most. A similar funny twist was expected this time around too, but luckily, we will get to call Android 7.0, Nougat.

BASIC PRINCIPLES OF WEB DESIGN

June 24, 2016

You might have hired an experienced and reliable web developer to create your website and he might have lots of ideas on how to go about developing your site. But you should also have a fair grasp on the basic principles of web design so that your website conforms to industry standards.

A website should follow certain principles to conform to industry standards. You might have selected an experienced and reliable web developer to create your website and he might have lots of ideas on how to go about developing your site. Nonetheless, you should have a fair grasping about the basic principles of web design. Let us familiarise with them one by one and learn the concepts.

Usability Factors

Usability is the foremost functional aspect of a website. A website needs to be intuitively usable to retain visitor engagement. Usability is determined by various factors, and the following are the key attributes of a usable website.

Useful – The site should “do” something that the visitor wants.

Learnable – The visitor should be able to learn how to use the site.

Effective – The site should serve its purpose

Efficient – It should function with minimum efforts.

Desirable – It should be appealing to users.

Memorable – Users should remember the features, next time they visit.

Delightful – Browsing the site should be enjoyable.

To start with, your website should be designed around a particular goal that the visitor is looking for. Once the visitor gets to your site, it should not take time for him to figure out how the site works. The visitor should get what he wants from the site, with the minimum of effort. The design and layout should be pleasing to the eye and the elements should be designed in such a way that the user will remember its function the next time he sees it. And at last, the overall experience the visitor gets from your site should be delightful.

Web pages are Rather Scanned Than Read

Users intuitively look for familiar terms and elements when they get to a web page. No matter how carefully you choose your words and present the content, most internet users do not read the whole text content given in websites. They look for specific terms and familiar design elements. So, always try to organise the information in a conventional manner that visitors are accustomed to. Consider placing information wisely along commonly seen elements such as;

Buttons

Links

Combo Boxes

Check Boxes

Bullet Lists

Tables

Infographics

Multimedia Content

Pop-ups

Since users already know what each of these elements represents and what they are usually doing, you can make use of their intuition to drive their attention. In case you cannot do without too much text content, try to present it in smaller, separate paragraphs with adequate whitespace between. Use headings, subheadings and captions to present key points. You can also use distinguishable formatting like bolding, italicising or underlining to highlight keywords.

Internal linking and breadcrumb navigation are also deciding factors in a site’s efficiency. Internal linking refers to interconnecting all your web pages with one another using links. So, when a visitor scans a web page for a certain item, even if it is placed on a different page, a link to that particular item may be present on the page. Breadcrumbs are provided as a secondary navigation option for lots of websites. A breadcrumb trail shows the hierarchy of the current page and makes it easy to go back and forth within the hierarchy.

4 CORNERSTONE TECHNOLOGIES FOR CREATING A WEBSITE

June 9, 2016

Designing a website is not a big deal these days, provided you have basic knowledge of a few core technologies of the web. HTML and CSS are the chief cornerstone technologies you must have knowledge of, whereas knowledge of JavaScript and Bootstrap will give you added the advantage in building a website.

If you are going to build a website, there are two options. You can either build it yourself using one of the many website generators available online, like WordPress or you can hire a professional web developer to do it for you. Though there are many technologies to develop a website, you need knowledge of the following technologies as a minimum requirement to develop one yourself.

HTML, the coding language of the web

CSS, the language for styling web pages

JavaScript, for coding better user experiences

Bootstrap, for front-end framework

Like already mentioned, there are lots of technologies in web development but the above four are selected for their widespread acceptance and comparative ease of use. Let us look at these in detail.

HTML

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and as the name suggests, it is a markup language. Unlike a programming language, a markup language is a system for annotating a document in such a way that it can be syntactically distinguished from the text. If this sounds too techie, just consider it as the cornerstone technology used in creating web pages and user interfaces. All browsers are capable of reading HTML code and rendering them into web pages. HTML semantically defines the structure of a website, including cues for the appearance of the web pages. HTML also allows embedding of images and other objects and can be used for creating interactive forms. HTML uses structural semantics called tags, such as headings, paragraphs, quotes, lists and links. Browsers do not display the tags but use them to interpret the nature of the associated content.

CSS

CSS is the abbreviation for Cascading Style Sheets. This is the language used for describing how a document is written in HTML, or any markup language is visually presented. CSS is the cornerstone technology used for creating visually engaging web pages and user interfaces. The prime aim of CSS is to separate content from document presentation aspects such as fonts, colour and layout, in order to improve content accessibility and flexibility. This method of separating content from formatting allows the same page to be rendered differently on different screen sizes and devices. CSS makes it possible to change the graphic design of a number of documents by editing just a few lines of code. CSS can not only be applied to HTML documents, but also to XHTML (X stands for Extensible), XML (Extensible Markup Language), XUL (XML User Interface) or SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics). With sufficient basic understanding of HTML and CSS, you can create a reasonably good website by yourself.

JavaScript and Bootstrap

JavaScript is a high-level programming language and third major core technology of the web, identified along with HTML and CSS. It supports object-oriented, functional and imperative programming styles. The application programming interface (API) of JavaScript allows working with text, dates and other regular expressions but does not allow any input/output communication such as networking or storage.

Bootstrap is a front-end web framework that is free and open-source. Frameworks are meant to alleviate the overheads in web development, such as database access, templating and session management. Bootstrap contains HTML and CSS-based templates and JavaScript extensions. Neither JavaScript nor Bootstrap is a must for developing a simple website on your own. But if you develop a site using these technologies, it will be much easy for you if you intend to upgrade it to a full-fledged website later on.

BASICS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT SEO – PART I

May 25, 2016

You have just set up a website for your new business, but you do not know much about promoting it. You consult a marketing expert and he tells you that you should get someone to do SEO for your site. You just know SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation.

Now, do you know what a search engine optimised website is and, how can SEO tools make a noticeable difference in your website traffic?

The internet is flooded with half-baked ideas on the best approaches to SEO. It makes up a complete bundle of misinformation about applying SEO techniques. Do not be overwhelmed. This article will give you the essential knowledge about SEO so that you know what to expect if you are about to invest in it.

Being Patient

The first thing about SEO is to have some patience. It is a continuous, time-consuming process and whoever guarantees you instant SEO results is definitely a crook. You cannot expect instant results with any SEO strategy and there are no shortcuts to quickly gaining immediate recognition of your site by search engines. You will have to patiently wait for weeks, sometimes even months, before you can witness noticeable results of SEO. This is because search engines scrutinise and rank websites based on certain algorithms which are updated now and then.

At present, websites are ranked based upon about two hundred factors, most of which are undisclosed. Only some best practices are announced to webmasters and developers but the many deciding factors are kept as a secret to avoid malpractices. Since the algorithms are regularly updated, SEO tactics that once worked may no longer be effective.

Informative and Unique Content

The foremost factor about SEO is making your site really informative and useful to visitors. Today, the internet is treated as the primary source of information. Using clichéd descriptions like innovative, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art etc., will not add to your site’s reputation. Instead, be honest with your target audience and write only facts about your product or service.

Make sure that the content you put into your site is unique. You may write about topics related to your business in your blog section and provide news and current affairs in your sector. Never, ever copy content from elsewhere and repost in your site. Duplicate or plagiarised content is frowned upon by all search engines.Unique content always gets the highest priority while search engines rank websites. So, if you are serious about SEO, provide as much relevant information and specifications of your products or services.

Harnessing the Power of Social Media

Social media is the best channel for engaging with your customers, both prospective and existing. It is the online equivalent of the always powerful “word of mouth” marketing. Schedule regular tweets on Twitter and announce your offers and special deals through Facebook posts. Do not be discouraged if your social media posts do not get enough likes and shares initially. The shares can grow exponentially over time and once they do, there is no looking back.

3 MAJOR PLAYERS IN CLOUD STORAGE

May 18, 2016

Cloud storage has rapidly gained popularity in the past decade and today, it is an integral part of online life.Though criticised for concerns about privacy and security, cloud storage is here to stay. At this point, we think it is best to get to know major players in the cloud storage market.

Cloud storage or online data storage has rapidly gained popularity in the past decade and today, it is an integral part of online life. The term cloud computing in its current context was first used in 2006 by Eric Schmidt, the then CEO of Google. It marked the beginning of this historic shift that is reshaping the economics of the IT arena. Though criticised for concerns about privacy and security, cloud storage is here for the long haul. At this point, we think it is best to get to know major players in the cloud storage market.

and uploads and downloads secured with SSL. It is a highly compatible, rock solid, no frills cloud storage service that sets the benchmark for rest of the competition. AES 256-bit encryptionIntroduced in 2007, Dropbox remains the leader in cloud storage. They stand out in the cloud crowd as Dropbox is one of the few services that cover all major operating systems including Linux and Blackberry. The free account gives you 2GB storage and there is a 1TB plan at £7.99 per month. They also offer 500MB free storage for every successful referral you make. Dropbox lets you create a local folder that syncs online. With the pro version, you can set permissions, passwords and expiration for shared links. Stored files are secured withDrop box has been highly lauded by major names in media including PC Magazine and The Washington Post for its user friendliness and simplicity in design.

Though Microsoft was very generous with storage space when they first introduced OneDrive, it now offers a basic account with 5GB free storage and 1TB for paid Office 365 subscribers. The upside is mainly the modern user interface design with clean lines, typical of Microsoft. There is also a remote access feature that lets you access files through the OneDrive website. The social element lets you share files easily with your colleagues. In contrast to Dropbox, the basic version also lets you set file permissions.But beware before uploading copyrighted or explicit content; Microsoft scans all uploads for these.

Similar to how OneDrive connects into Microsoft products, Google Drive is the cloud storage service that links all the assorted online services currently offered by Google. When you sign up for a Google account, you get 15GB cloud storage by default. This means you already have a Google Drive account if you use Gmail. You get 100GB additional storage space for two years when you purchase a Chromebook and similar offers also come with some Android phones. One added advantage of Google Drive is the real-time document collaboration through Google Docs cloud application. At present, the Google Drive clients are available only for Windows, Mac, Android and iOS. Similar to OneDrive, selective syncing is available in Google Drive also. True to Google’s preference for minimalist user experience, the interface is easy to navigate and smart. If you are a Google loyalist, no second thoughts are needed in opting for Google Drive as your cloud storage service.

IMPORTANCE OF WIREFRAMES IN WEB DESIGN

April 25, 2016

A website developmentproject typically starts with a wireframe design. A wireframe is a simple black and white outline showing the size and placement of website development A web page elements, features, conversion areas and navigation. It does not incorporate colour schemes, fonts, logos or any real design elements but merely focuses on the structure and functionality of the site.

A wireframe may be compared with the blueprint of a new home, where you can see structural details like plumbing, electrification etc. without finer details like interior design elements etc. It is the best method for developers to explain site features visually.

For example, all clients may not clearly understand technical terms like “product filtering”, “hero image” or “lightbox”. But when presented in the wireframe, even laymen can have a good understanding of how the finished site will look and function.

In the development process of a website, wireframes are important for the developers as well as the client. Following are the important aspects of wireframes.

Visually displays site architecture – A wireframe design will show all the pages of the website and their hierarchy. It is better to add actual text content in the wireframe instead of the usual “Lorem Ipsum” dummy text. This will help you plan proper distribution and responsive layout of text content.

Clarifies website features – Since wireframes have all the clickable elements like buttons, links etc., all features of the website can be demonstrated in it. There is no better way to demonstrate site navigation and such features of the site other than wireframes.

Highlights usability – As mentioned earlier, the usability and functionality of the site are highlighted in the wireframe design, rather than its graphical design, which is of comparatively low priority.

Makes the development process iterative – As the client has a good idea of what the finished site will look and function like, wireframing makes the development process gradually evolve starting from scratch. It helps not to overlook critical design problems which if identified in a later stage, will sometimes complicate the entire design. As observed oftentimes, websites developed without wireframing are likely to have too many last minute modifications.

Importance for Developers

Wireframing helps developers plan out the content and user experience first, which are more important than its visual design. Some developers jump right into a full-fledged design when the client is in a hurry to get the site up fast. But often, a website developed without wireframing gets harder to modify at later stages of the development process and in effect, takes more time to complete. It also helps detect potential design problems early and saves time in revisions. From the feedback of the wireframe design, developers can also get an idea about the client and his expectations, so that you can work in that direction from the initial phases of the project.

Importance for Clients

Wireframes are good for the client also, as they help clients to focus on more important factors like layout, content, functionality, etc. rather than on graphical design. A design proposal submitted in full colour will distract the client from these crucial aspects. They also help developers understand your tastes and preferences before the actual creative work begins, saving you time and money in revisions.

MINIMALISM BACK IN WEB DESIGN

March 22, 2016

At the time when the internet first arrived, server space and bandwidth were among the major concerns in web development. Web developers and designers used to take utmost care in using design elements that were less resource-hungry and as a result, the websites from the early days of the internet were of minimalist design. But as computers became more powerful and networks became faster, the web became a playground for professionals to showcase their artistic design brilliance. Needless to say, websites developed in this era were pretty impressive, design wise and were heavy on graphics, gratuitous animations and dynamic elements.

Then, by around the year 2000, the trend in web design started to shift back to minimalism. I guess smartphones have a lot to do with this paradigm shift. Earlier, people connected to the web only through personal computers or higher capacity machines. Though PDA phones were able to connect to the net, browsing was not a smooth experience. PDA phones evolved into smartphones and tablets and in no time, they caught up with desktop computers and laptops, in terms of internet access.

By the year 2015, mobile devices actually overtook desktops with about 51% of the total time spent on the internet accounted for. In contrast, the total time spent for internet access on desktops amounted only to 42%. It is also estimated that 21% of all millennials, who are more tech-savvy, use only mobile devices to access the net.

Now, web professionals are presented with a new challenge. No matter how eye-catching your site is when viewed on the desktop, what really matters is how they look on mobile devices. People who cared too much chose to build two separate websites; a full version for the desktop and a minimal version for mobile. Some smarter ones went a step ahead and opted for responsive websites, where the site optimised itself for the best viewing across platforms. But again, maintaining the feel and functionality of desktop browsing on mobile devices was not an easy task and in some cases, impossible.

So, unknowingly or involuntarily, developers started to shift towards minimal web designs. Today, websites are a matter of fact and easy on the eye and they serve the purpose without all the frills. As I have mentioned earlier, the temptation to impress the world with their artistic brilliance is still prevalent among amateur web developers. For a selected group of users, the internet is still primarily a source of information and not entertainment. They should be your target audience, whom you should look forward to impress. They do not care much about pictures or graphics but do care about the authenticity of the content. Your prime focus should be on proper layout of information and ease of navigation.

Gone are the days when people were impressed with flamboyant flash intros or animated menus and the works. The only thing that impresses the right internet users anymore is information that is new to them. If you can help them find it on your site, consider them impressed.

GENERATING LEADS

January 25, 2016

Company owners are always on the lookout for new ways to market their business. One of the ways you can do this is by generating leads. Leads are a great way to increase your business as most of the time it’s free and it’s not time-consuming. There are different types of leads and upon where the lead is coming from will depend on the impact it makes to your business. So follow these tips to find out what will work best for you and your company.

1. What are leads?

First of all you need to understand the basics. You need to understand what leads are and how they benefit your business. Leads are in a way like hyperlinks. By clicking on a lead it will lead you to your business website or whatever you may have chosen it to lead to.

2. How the leads system work

When generating leads a crucial step is finding and choosing your target market. Find other websites similar to your business and request a lead. However, your lead will not always be accepted by the website.

3. Video marketing

One of the ways you can generate leads is through video marketing. It’s a fact that people view over 100 million videos every day. The first step is creating a social video. The way you do this is by getting your fans and followers to become your customers. Once you have done this you need to transform you social media fans onto your landing page.

4. Expanding

Once you have your videos up and running extend the places you upload them on. Instead of just uploading all your videos onto your site you can use other sites to upload your videos on to, One of the most obvious being YouTube. YouTube is one of the most impactful ways to gain more viewers. You can also keep your social media pages updated by uploading your videos onto you social media pages as well. The more videos you upload in different places the more viewers you will get instantly impacting the growth of your business.

5. What your video should include

When you begin video marketing you might be puzzled as to what needs to be included when making you video. First of all, you need to explain what it is that your company actually does. If you are selling items you need to describe some of the items that you sell.

Next, you need to tell your viewers about some of the prices. Double check your figures and make sure that they are correct since you don’t want your customers complaining about the prices when they explore your actual site. Attract your viewers by shouting out discounts and offers.

Get the customers interested by saying what new things there are in your company and what exciting things you’re bringing in.

You should add links in the video description to lead straight to your website so your customers need not worry about finding your website. You can also link your landing page onto your domain which you will find it very beneficial.

As you can see generating leads can impact your business hugely and one of the best ways to do this is by video marketing. By following these few tips I guarantee you will see differences in growth in your business.

HOW TO INCREASE RETURNING VISITORS TO YOUR WEBSITE

December 16, 2015

It’s a crucial thing to have a good website when you have a business. Websites are considered a professional thing to have. Whether you already have a successful business or you are just starting out a website will improve the amount of clients you get by majorly, however it’s not a one of thing your website should have the ability to keep your customers coming back in this article we will talk about who you can reassure to get your clients coming back.

First impressions

When a customer views your website you need to make sure it looks good, first impressions are important because it’s the main thing that will determine if your customer returns. The first thing that hits your customers when they view your website is the colour and the layout. Lots of pages and pages of writing is probably going to do the opposite of increasing your returning customers. So try not to make your website boring, add bright colours and pictures as well as making sure you include the crucial information your customers are going to need to know.

Keep it updated

You need to add new things to your website. Change the layout or pictures or maybe just the colours every now and then; there’s always room for improvement. If you don’t change it in any way every often what’s the point of your customer coming back if they’ve already seen it all? Keep updating your new blogs and articles consistently. Giving them some new to read will reel them and give them a purpose of returning to your site.

Social media

A large majority of businesses use social media websites to increase customers and increase the number of those customers that return to their website. Two of the biggest social networking sites are Twitter and Facebook. Creating a fan page on these sites is simple. Your fan page can be used to post links that will lead directly to your website. You can also post information to keep you clients updated. These fan pages really do make a huge difference which is why so many major brands have a page dedicated to connecting with their clients.

Where are your visitors coming from?

One of the things that will really help you gain returning visitors is understanding your customers and knowing where they are coming from. One of the ways you can do this is by using google analytics. Google analytics helps you by showing how your customers found your website and what links they used as well. Understanding where your customers are coming from will make a huge impact as you can know which marketing strategies are working best for you.

THE SECRETS TO EFFECTIVE CARD-BASED DESIGN

Nowadays card-style interface is a popular and user-friendly option for all types of digital design on varying device sizes.

A card should serve as a holder for a particular piece of content such as content link, signup, video player, and so on – that users want to interact with. One card equals one action.

Simple ways to design card-style interface

There is not a magic formula for the perfect card, but there are some design choices you can make that encourage every user to click.

1. Use a black and white outline

Begin with a black and white outline. The entire card can serve as a link, so think about – what parts of it will be a click. Consider the elements like spacing, images, and typography etc. Also think about how you would utilise it from this stage such as place of “click here” button, its pattern and working etc.

2. Use exaggerated spacing

Use larger white spacing between the elements, it will increase the readability. You might need, to begin with, double the spacing you may normally consider between elements. Gutters should be extra wide and line spacing could use the extra room as well. The additional space can utilise to create an open design and organise the content more clearly. The card has a constrained canvas and ought to fit on a single screen on a phone, and screen on larger devices such as tablets or desktops. Cards may also compete against other cards for attention on larger screens. Added whitespace will help the entire design feel more open and easy to dive into.

3. Add natural colour and shading

Next, give the colour and shading to the design – keeps it natural looking and copy reality in the shadows and styles of the design. The card would follow:

Lighting should cast some shadows to the back and bottom.

The darkest part of the design is likely at the bottom thanks to lighting conditions, which normally come from above.

Avoid content in areas that are required for holding the card.

Touchpoints (and the associated calls-to-action) should be focal points and easy to interact with. (Just like the face of a playing card is in the centre of the design.)

One card equals one bit of information.

4. Create simple layers and typefaces

Use simple layering to create a unified card style for the entire interface. When it comes to typography, avoid super thin or condensed options because they can be tougher to read. It’s better, if you choose sans serifs as fond style.

Most cards work best with two typeface options – something for the main body and another for the headline or call-to-action. Remember to include the contrast between typefaces and contrast between the background and text elements for each card.

5. Limit UI elements

Keep the limited number of user interface elements throughout the design, for example, buttons throughout the design. You might not even need a button at all in a card-style design. Keep the shape and design simple.

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE DOING SEO FOR A WEBSITE

November 27, 2015

SEO OR Search Engine Optimisation is a technique for improving search rank for your website. In order to get a decent ranking for your website, you need to obtain a quality link. It is the prime aspect which is possible through the procedure of link building. Other websites will voluntarily hyperlink to your site only if your site has a valuable content and good ranking.

The more quality backlinks your site gets, more valuable it becomes. You can examine your competitor’s website to know from where they acquired the quality links. And then make a research on how did they achieve the ranks. And you can update your website through the exact SEO link building strategy that your competitor had used. Another point to be remembered is that if you think that your website needs some updating and overhauling, then you should do it properly. The way you have built up your website and its contents will be important when it comes to the question of website’s reputation. It is not suggestible to keep any of the pages are partially completed as it will reduce your website’s worth. You should try for links only after finishing the construction of your website.

The prime thing you should do in order to keep your site live and dynamic is to make its contents well developed. This will help to get your site to be regularly crawled and it will add to the reputation of your website. Moreover, if you feel that overhauling your site will do you better, then go for it. At the same time, it should be worth noted that in case if you did not finish creating your web page, do it only after having the entire website links got completed. Creating the web pages of your site with great internal linking structure is very important.

The SEO of your website should include all the pages including the home page so that they will be indexed by the search engine at a quicker pace. Getting backlinks will improve the traffic to your website improving your conversion ratio and simultaneously boosting your sales.

Next step is to submit your website to high page rank directories and bookmarking sites to improve the reputation. This can help getting more referral traffic from the interested customers and also get quality back links. Links from other websites are a vote of approval in the view of search engines that your particular website is approved by other people as a legitimate site worthy of linking.

Thus quality backlink building is one of the prime aspects of Search Engine Optimisation techniques giving income in the long term point of view. The thing to be remembered is that the backlinks that you have made and maintaining are should be of high quality. This is the recommended way to professionalism in SEO. Our technical team at the Design Direct with their immense exposure and competitive edge in the field will make your website live and dynamic and place it in the top slot.

GUIDE FOR GETTING STARTED WITH GOOGLE ANALYTICS

October 13, 2015

What is Google Analytics:

Google Analytics is a FREE assistance that provides comprehensive statistics regarding the visitors to a website. Data available through this assistance consists of site visits, page views, bounce rate, average time on site, pages per visit and percentage of new visits. In addition to the data mentioned above, Google Analytics can also track referral traffic including search engine, direct visits, website referrals and marketing campaigns (Pay Per Click, Banner advertising, e-mail marketing etc.)

Quick Glossary:Metrics

Metrics are individual elements of a dimension that can be measured as a sum or a ratio. Screen views, Pages/Session and Average Session Duration are examples of metrics in Google Analytics.

Sessions—A session is the period of time a user is actively engaged with your website, app, etc., within a date range. All usage data (Screen views, Events, E-commerce, etc.) is associated with a session.

Users—Users who have had at least one session within the selected date range. Includes both new and returning users.

Pageviews—Pageviews means the total number of pages viewed. Repeated views of a single page are counted.

Pages/Session—Pages/session (Average Page Depth) is the average number of pages viewed during a session.Repeated views of a single page are counted.

Avg. Session Duration—The average length of a session.

Bounce Rate—Bounce rate is the percentage of single-page visits (i.e., visits in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with the page).

New Sessions—An estimate of the percentage of first-time visits.

Goals—Goals let you measure how often users take or complete specific actions on your website.

Conversions—Conversions are the number of times goals have been completed on your website.

Campaigns—Campaigns (also known as custom campaigns) allow you to add parameters to any URL from your website to collect more information about your referral traffic.

Acquisition—Acquisition is how you acquire users.

Behavior—Behavior data helps you improve your content.

Google Analytics Dashboard

When you log in to Google Analytics, you will end up in a reporting page just like the screenshot given below: At the top of the screen, you’ll see the basic Google Analytics menu bar that allows you to go back and forth between the Home page, Reporting, Customisation (reports) and Admin section.

On the left sidebar, there is a search box to help you find specific reports and a list of links to important areas of your Google Analytics.

You can use the date range to see your data over any specified time period. You can also use it to compare the current time period to a previous time period to see the change in sessions, average session duration, bounce rate and goal conversion rate.

Dashboards

Dashboards allow you to create customised views of your Google Analytics data using widgets. It’s a great way to see specific subsets of data without having to navigate through your standard reports.

Intelligence Events are alerts you can set up within Google Analytics that email you when a specific event occurs.

You can set up alerts for events like a dramatic change in a number of sessions, goal conversions or other metrics within a daily, weekly or monthly time frame.

Real-Time

Want to know who’s on your website right now? Real-Time data gives you access to that data instantly.

You can see current visitors’ page views, active pages, locations and more.

Audience

The Audience reports provide insight into characteristics of your audience.

Audience Overview is the option you mainly need. By clicking on that you will be getting a detailed page of the behaviour of your customers and can judge the performance of your site. Please see the glossary given at the beginning of this document to know what each term means. Try clicking each of the sections in demographics, system, mobile etc to get more precise information about the visits you are getting to your website. All Sessions in the top section and choose the required segments. And then click Apply to see the results.

6. Acquisition:

The Acquisition section tells you where your visitors originated from, such as search engines, social networks or website referrals. This is a key section when determining which online marketing tactics are bringing the most visitors to your website.

Acquisition Overview:

The Acquisition Overview gives you a quick view of the top channels sending visitors to your website, as well as the associated acquisition, behaviour and conversions details for each channel.

Below are a list and short descriptions of the top channels Google Analytics uses to track your traffic sources.

Organic Search— Visitors who come to your website after searching Google.com and other search engines

Paid Search—Visitors who come to your website from an AdWords or other paid search ad.

Direct—Visitors who come to your website without a traceable referral source, such as typing your URL into their address bar or using a bookmark on their browser.

Referral—Visitors who come to your website from another website by clicking on a link.

Social—Visitors who come to your website from a social network.

Other—If you use UTM parameters for custom campaign tracking, the traffic linked to those campaigns is listed here.

All Traffic

=>Channels:

The Channels section is similar to the Acquisition Overview, except it gives you a graph to go along with the acquisition, behaviour and conversions details.

=>Treemaps

This option provides you with a better analysis of your website in the form of nested rectangles.

=>Source/Medium This shows the source/medium from which you are getting the visits.

=>Referrals Referrals leaves out search engines and direct traffic, and only shows website domains (including social networks) that have referred traffic to your website.

=>Adwords:

The AdWords section shows you data about the visitors who click through your AdWords campaigns. You need to connect your account to Google Adwords for retrieving this information.

=>Search Engine Optimisation: Here you’ll find a set of reports with data from Google Webmaster Tools, which is a free Google product that lets you monitor your website’s health in Google search. When you click on one of the three reports in the Search Engine Optimisation section (Queries, Landing Pages or Geographical Summary), you’re prompted to set up Google Webmaster Tools data sharing.

=>Social: The Social section gives you more in-depth details about social activity related to your website. The Social Overview starts by giving you a summary of conversions linked to social networks and traffic from specific networks.

=>Campaigns: Campaigns tracks visitors who come from campaigns you (or a third-party application) have set up. You will get the details of campaigns, keyword performance and cost analysis from this report.

Behaviour

TheBehaviourr section reveals what your visitors do on your website. Specifically, the reports tell you what pages people visit and what actions they take while visiting.

Conversion

This segment gives you the final reports of the goals you have set in admin phase. Goals help you track the data related to a user completing a specific action on your website.

The simplest goal type is the Destination goal. This type of goal allows you to say that when a user reaches a specific page on your website, a specific goal has been completed.

To set up a destination goal, click on Goals from the Admin panel, then click on the +New Goal button.

5 TOOLS FOR ATTRACTIVE CONTENT WRITING

October 6, 2015

Attractive content content writing for social media campaign or website is the best way to get your employees engaged. Automated content creation tools are short cut to make creative contents that can help in Digital Marketing Methodstoo. But nowadays different kinds of content writing tools are available to help the writers edit, proof read and produce effective contents that are worthy and capable of making results.

Here I would like to present to you 5 interesting tools which really helps you in creating compelling contents. I’m taking only 5 tools which I found very useful for me but there are several more. For those who are unaware of these tools, I believe that this article would be really helpful. There are tools for generating ideas, writing spaces, grammar checks, style guides, making sharable contents and readability tests to enhance the writing skills of any content writer.

Tools For Content WritingGoogle Docs: Google docs help everyone to create, access and edit documents from anywhere and everywhere at any time using your phone, computer or laptop. It can be considered as the ideal tool for collaboration. It allows real-time editing which means when you edit, the people who shares the same document can see it and vice versa. You can chat and post comments within the loop of documents. The fun fact is that it comes free of cost.

HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator: You just need to enter three nouns and HubSpot will come up with different ideas within seconds. This helps the writers who are in search of a new catchy title or topic to develop on.

Zen Pen: It helps in simple and clean writing experience which keeps any writer free of distraction to sit, focus and write on a topic chosen. Zen pen is an open-source project.

Grammarly: It is considered to be an online grammar and spell checking application. It can easily find the mistakes even more than 250 numbers. Even plagiarism can be detected and rectified by using Grammarly.

Byword: This writing app is keenly designed for those who use Apple products. This works only on iOS where you can write contents with less friction. You can easily upload the articles to WordPress, Blogger or Tumblr very easily.

Mistakes while writing can occur to anyone. As they imagine and put those thoughts into word there are chances that many words get misplaced or the grammatical errors occur. So assistance is always advisable. I hope all these tools would be really helpful for those who are trying hard to polish a better career in writing.

HOW WEBSITE TEMPLATES USEFUL IN WEB DESIGN

October 1, 2015

What is a website template? The web designing experts at web designers north London Company would help you to understand that web templates are website designs which have been predesigned. These web templates are created by professional web designing companies for their clients and you as a client can customize your selected web template based on your website requirements. The elements that would need to be customized in your web template are color, incorporating your online content into the template and accurately arranging the images based on your company’s specification.

Can these web templates be edited?

Web templates can be edited and you can use popular HTML editing software’s like Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and FrontPage. You do not require in depth technical knowledge to use these HTML editors and they have easy user friendly interfaces. You can use a little support from your professional web designing companies if you do not have much computer knowledge. This would also help you to get your work done accurately and save valuable time.

What are the essential qualities that a good web template should enjoy?

The web template experts in north London web designing company would point out the essential features that a web template should incorporate. These are:

The web template that you use in your website design should be compatible with popular HTML editing software like Photoshop, Dreamweaver and FrontPage. This would help you to enjoy modification on these templates from time to time when the need arises.

When web templates are created there is a good amount of coding present. A good customized web template should have good quality coding which should not alter the basic layout, online content and various images in the website, when these elements are incorporated in the website. Otherwise it would be difficult to customize the web template as per the needs of the website.

The web template should not be heavy and be easily uploaded
When your website is created using these customized web templates, the web page should be easy to download by the online visitor. You might face online traffic problems if the web pages are difficult to download and take a lot of time.Are they any benefits of using web templates?

A web template creates a professional appearance for your website
There is millions of websites on the internet. A well made customized template creates a professional appearance, which in return creates a positive impact in the mind of your targeted customers.

Using web templates help you to save time
The process of designing a website would take some time. But you want to immediately publish your website, as the festive season is around and you would miss out on good online business. Most professional web designing companies understand this view point of their clients and thus have web templates that help them to build their websites quickly, design them and publish them on the internet. Within a few days your website is up and you soon start enjoying good online business.

Web templates enjoy economical rates
Even when you use the services of a web designing company to develop a web template for your website or your eBay store, the rates are very economical and very customer friendly.

Currently responsive web templates are a craze in this segment. You can ask your web designing company about them and they would help you build your website using this technology. This would be a good business decision for the growth of your online business.

2 SEARCH ENGINE FACTORS FOR SEO SUCCESS IN 2015

September 21, 2015

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is meant to get a higher rank for your website and thus enhance the business prospects. Nowadays search engines are becoming smarter to serve most relevant and quality content to the users. Top search engines like Google, Bing etc are giving more importance for quality and will get actions against spam activities.

Website Content
So according to Google get better search engine visibility for the website it must have regular updating of site content properly. The way you have built up your website and its contents are very much counted when it comes to the question of website’s reputation. It is not suggestible to keep any of the pages as `under construction’ label as it will reduce your website’s worth. You should try for links only after finishing the construction of your website. Other websites will voluntarily hyperlink to your site only if your site contains something considerably more valuable than they have.

The prime thing you should do in order to keep your site live and dynamic is to make its contents well developed. This will add to the reputation of your website. Moreover, if you feel that overhauling your site will do you better, and then go for it. At the same time, it should be worth remembering that in the event if you did not finish creating your website, do it only after having all the links got completed. Building the pages of your sites with great inner linking structure is very important. While doing SEO focus on all the important pages including the home page so that they will be indexed by the search engine at a quicker pace.

Build Quality Back Links
In order to get a decent ranking for your website what you need to do is to obtain some quality links. It is the prime aspects of SEO which is attaining through quality back link building from high PR, trusted and popular websites. Getting quality links from other sites are also important. The more quality links your site gets, more valuable it becomes. At firs, you must examine your competitor’s website to track from where they acquired the quality links. And then make a study as to how did they achieve the same. And you can update your website through the exact SEO link building strategy that your competitors used.

Building natural links back to your website will improve your site ranks and conversion ratio which simultaneously boost your sales. Thus link building is one of the prime aspects of Search Engine Optimisation techniques garnering income in the long term. The point to be remembered is that the links that you have made and maintaining are related, of high quality and permanent. This is the right way to professionalism in SEO. Last but not the least process is to submit your website to your website directories to improve the reputation. This will enable you to get more and more clicks from the interested customers.Links from other sites is a sign of approval from other people that your particular web site is approved by other people as a legitimate site worthy of linking.

5 GOLDEN RULES FOR WEBSITE OPTIMISATION

September 14, 2015

The Google Panda and the Google Penguin updates revolutionised the existing Search Engine Optimisation techniques and the way websites could be optimised to enjoy enhanced visibility in the online world. Google Panda update changed the search ranking algorithm of Google and stopped low-quality websites from being placed in the top website search engine results and helped good quality websites enjoy more visibility. Google Penguin update, on the other hand, undertook to penalise websites, which did not follow basic Webmaster Guidelines from Google and over optimised their website with paid links and keyword stuffing. Being the owner of a few websites, you visited the experts at web design London Company in order to incorporate the necessary changes in your website. The experts at web designing company in London helped you to understand, that despite all these major changes, your websites would enjoy great optimisation features if it followed the basic golden rules suggested by them. These are:

1. Your website should have a simple hierarchy

The SEO experts at web designing company in London maintain that a website should enjoy clear and simple hierarchy. Each web page in your website should have minimum one text link and this would help the search engine to access it easily.

2. Your online visitor should enjoy easy navigation in your website

When an online visitor visits your websites it should be able to navigate easily through your website and find the information that it is looking for. The more quickly they find the information, the better experience they would have and they would recommend your website to others and come back themselves for a few more times. This simple method helps you to enjoy good online traffic on a regular basis.

3. The importance of a sitemap in your website

Online visitors have very little time in hand. A sitemap in your website would help them to find the accurate information that they are looking for and access it immediately. They would also appreciate the fact, that you understand the importance of their time and try to incorporate sitemap feature on your website, in order to provide them with enhanced surfing experience. Search engines would also be able to locate your website faster.

4. Using unique titles in your web page

When you use unique titles in your web pages, the online visitor would be attracted towards it and take a few minutes to read the Meta tag description. This also helps the search engine to recognise the content of your website and place it in the top website search engine list.

5. Use image description in your website efficiently

A picture can say thousands of things to an online visitor. But these images have to be used accurately by using the ALT attribute. The ALT attribute when used in an image, helps to optimise the image and the search engine can access it as an alternative text. If your website is using a few images for decoration purpose, then you can use an empty ALT.

Besides these basic golden rules, the experts at web designing company in London maintain that your online content should be of high quality and you should use the tools of social media to promote your websites. When these basic guidelines are adopted in a website, you would enjoy great online success and greater online visibility on the internet, in no time.

WHAT DOES IT ACTUALLY MEAN BY INFOGRAPHICS?

July 28, 2015

A well designed Infographics can simplify a complex issue or otherwise make a boring subject as a fascinating experience to the users. To make it more clear what an Infographics is we will have to read further. According To John Souza, he says “In content marketing, an infographic is an ‘information graphic’ or an image that creatively displays information in an easy-to-consume, highly engaging and visually attractive way”.

By adding interactive and graphical content for your website, it can become one of the most effective strategies in a global digital marketing campaign. Ideally, computer graphics should be visually appealing to your target audience and supported by another compelling content through its website and social networks. Also, it should be working on all the operating systems and mobile-friendly too.

Infographics can be seen in every public environment – transport, metro maps, tag clouds, music scores and weather maps are just a few examples of the many possibilities.

In society, computer graphics from all the levels of management of data are used at a high level. Computer graphics are bar graphs, pie charts, histograms, line charts, tree diagrams, mind maps, Gantt charts and network diagrams. These tools are often business intelligence software components. Since the amount of data is accumulated in the company and increased elsewhere, computer graphics are increasingly being used by the people to understand the information in the data.

Infographics use writing as a means of dissemination of information – oldest known example could be drawings seen inside the caves. Also, humans created and used the cards before the advent of written language.

5 COMMON MISTAKES IN WEBSITE DESIGN

July 22, 2015

A website is a medium through which viewers can access your information or purchase your products over the internet. Website design is one of the most vital things that you need to consider if you want to develop a website. Quality design helps to improve the credibility, communication and conversion of a website. It’s vision into the quality of your products and how easy their experience will be.

5 Common Website Design Mistakes

1.People don’t know what you do
If people don’t know exactly what you do within 5 seconds, you lost them. You don’t need to have each detail explained on impact; however, you must be sure users catch the general idea. Thus content is an important factor.

2. You are not capturing customers
Driving traffic is the first step and capturing leads and getting them to return is the second step of the marketing equation. Companies must begin placing the appropriate captures on their site. Social media buttons are one of the best ways to capture user’s attention.

3. You forgot a starting point
Building a business often needs users to follow a trail of small steps before them turning into a customer. Marketers call this funnelling. Without a beginning point on your website, you’re likely letting qualified leads to slip through the cracks.

4. You hide the contact information
If you’re a product or service company with large numbers of users, customer support should be front and centre. Don’t forget to include your company address, phone numbers on the contact page.

If your business is trying to keep customers, then start putting your contact number everywhere on the website. Sure, you will get marketers spamming you, sure you will get calls that could have easily been solved through email, but your customers will be happy. And that’s all that matters.

5. Your fonts don’t read like a book
We all know, we use the increase font size function on your iPhone. But this function shouldn’t need for your website. Reading a website should read like a book. The spacing between letters, line spacing, colour and size of the fonts will build a dramatic difference in drawing customers into your content.

THE IMPORTANCE OF MOBILE APPS FOR YOUR BUSINESS

July 16, 2015

Customers who are in today’s world are on the move and they use the platforms of mobile applications to obtain what they aim for. They use mobile phones, tablets and other mobile devices, for all the information they need. That’s why mobile applications are much more important in the current market situation.

You must understand that mobile applications can enable customers to have all the information at hand. It is also important that your application is running on different platforms. But first, you begin with a single platform.

No matter what your business be a mobile application can help you to acquire and retain customers. And that’s a fact. We all know that the best customers are to find a product or service online. If your company is available online, and in addition to that free applications download on users’ devices, will make a good impression of your company. At a glance, you can see and open your application and purchase business.

Some of the greatest benefits of mobile enterprise applications are:

Loyalty

Strengthen your brand

Increase your visibility,

Increase their accessibility

Increase in direct sales

Increase exposure through mobile devices

Compound with consumer’s on-the-go

There are of course more. These are just some of them. As you can see, the benefits can be enormous. Not only that, your company benefits, but their clients. Some of the benefits of mobile applications for their customers are

Easy access to inventory

Receive notifications of special events, product launches etc.

Quick access to your contact information

Route to the place where they are

Make fast, transparent planning

and more! As you can see, that’s a lot.

So far, it must be very clear – the future of your business depends on its ability to implement its activities in mobile devices for worldwide reach. You need to go mobile and ready to grow.

It is important to note that commercial e-mail messages read rate is 4%. 97% of push notifications.

Not only mobile marketing is a cool tool (which you say things like, please visit our website, our free application download!) That allows people to reach on their site back, but, with customer participation in a whole new way.

TOP 5 BENEFITS OF DIGITAL MARKETING OVER TRADITIONAL MARKETING

July 6, 2015

In the world of technology, digital marketing and social media have a significant impact on how we conduct our business. So that it might be fair to say that all the companies which is not suited to the new era of marketing and communications, is in danger of losing. A combined strategy of traditional and digital marketing still generate returns for your business.

Here are the benefits of Digital Marketing1. Level playing field: Any company can compete regardless of size with a competitor, with strong digital marketing strategy. Traditionally, a small retailer would fight to the delicacy of the fixtures and fittings comply with their larger competitors. Online, a sharp covered space with a good drive and a great customer service is king – not the size.

2. Cost reduction: Your company can grow your online marketing strategy at very low cost and can potentially replace expensive advertising channels such as yellow pages, television, radio and magazines.

3. Easy to measure: To measure the traffic to your site, you can use Google Analytics to meet the specific goals that you achieve for your website or blog. A more packed email marketing solutions provide a good idea of how many people want to measure e-mails.

4. The results in real time: You do not have to wait weeks for a boost to your business you want to have to wait for a fax or form to be returned. You can access your site to see the number of visitors and increase your subscribers, peak trading hours, conversion rates and more at the push of a button.

5. The refinement of the strategy: Basically everything is recorded in the customer journey can be on the gross amount and improved for greater success in the fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. Finally, how annoying that is returned for a couple of forms from a mailing. Online marketing allows you to refine their strategy at any time and there are improvements or additional refinement options almost immediately.

Even more benefits are there for digital marketing when compared with traditional marketing. But the five elements explained here are considered to be the main criteria. So if you like to share your views on this topic please provide on the comment box given below.

CAN SOCIAL MEDIA HELP YOUR BUSINESS?

June 25, 2015

Social media is more than just a slogan. There are various opportunities and measurable results that are beneficial for companies of all sizes. While Facebook and Twitter can also be considered, it is more than that.

Often people are talking about the tools that take only a little time and strategize on what social media can really do. The tools are great if you know how to use it, but at some point, the tools need to have an intention.

I often hear companies seek the help of implementing social media strategies into their overall marketing plan with a skewed outlook on what social media is and what are the benefits of it. However, if you know what the media is then it is much easier to understand what it can do for your business.

If you have a good product, a detailed business plan, a customer service policies available and willing to invest time, here are some things that social media can do for your business.

The benefits that social media could provide:

It gives you the opportunity to start listening to what people says about your business.

You can have the one-to-one communication with consumers.

It can be used to share ideas about new products.

It helps in personalising your brand or the company as such.

Provides different channels to produce or distribute exclusive content that is shared to transform the voice of your brand so that it spreads very easily.

It can be used to share information and exclusive offers to your worldwide customers.

It can be considered as an extension of your PR strategies.

Provides platforms for communities to build communities for brand fans around your product and the business.

It offers the possibility of the exposure for your business.

It can also provide potential opportunities for word-of-mouth publicity for your business and the products.

Although I know this is not the end of all list of benefits, it is a good place to offer thoughts on the benefits of social media. Once you know what you can do, your next action would be building strategies.

“MOBILEGEDDON”- MOBILE FRIENDLY ALGORITHM UPDATE MADE LIVE

April 22, 2015

To put an end to our waiting, Google has officially announced Mobile-Friendly Algorithm (referred as a mobile add-on) update as of yesterday – 21st April 2015. It is expected that a substantial percentage of mobile search queries will be affected as a result of this update. People have ultimately evolved their browsing nature from computers/laptops to smartphones which made Google think about providing the most relevant and timely results at their fingertips.

There were signs leading up to this change from Google and so we are ready with our guards up to face the update. This was the first time in history that Google has given us a heads up in advance before the change.

“We will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact on our search results.”

We could say that this is a historical revolution to Google search results which has given us more prominence for searching using a particular interface (device). Even though Google has announced it lately, the signs were already there from last year. The agencies that reacted to this won’t need to suffer, but the others could possibly lose their customers to the hands of their competitors in no time at all.

Am I in trouble?

It seems that this update won’t affect the search queries in desktop and tablets but only in smartphones. As smartphones have relatively smaller display searches and often work on slower networks, a site specifically optimised to mobile will only survive. In addition, the news section, image search, local business listings will not be impacted by this update. Google has confirmed that only mobile search listings or “10 blue links” will be affected by this update. Google’s Garry Illyes has confirmed this on Twitter:

As mobile friendly is becoming an important ranking signal, you should make it a strict policy to optimise your website as mobile friendly. You can use this mobile-friendly test to check how much compatible your website is.

To let you know about the effect of this update in detail, we will need some time to analyse the changes live in action. Make sure to call us on 020 8363 4905 to see how we can make your site mobile friendly so it does not affect your ranking.

How to Cross-sell Effectively?

February 19, 2015

With the current level of the competitive market, it is getting very difficult to acquire more customers in all seasons of time. So people are looking for more techniques to cope up with the market changes. Cross-selling is one such idea which could assist you with exactly this scenario. This not only benefits the merchants but also the customers to a large extent.

Through cross selling, a merchant can sell more products to their customers and keep them in contact for more time. The customer here is not being left when he completes a purchase, he again thinks of buying some additional stuff from the same merchant. This brings the merchant to a new level of marketing by selling more of their stuff. The customers are becoming flexible to buy some supplementary products along with the initial purchase and could save more time.

Even though the cost of main purchase is a lot different from the cross-sold product, it still brings a lot of revenue to e-commerce merchants. From a study done at Amazon, they made 35% yearly revenue just from the cross selling. So why don’t you try this idea and make a considerable growth in your outcome?

Here are some tips that could help you with the successful management of Cross-Selling:

Understand your customers clearly. You should get know about their likes and desires before offering the supplementary products. The accessories suitable to be attached to the amateur photographer and a professional one will be different. You can list out the camera case for former and interchangeable lens in the latter case.

Relevancy is an important factor to consider while doing the cross-selling. The supplementary item should compliment the main product so that the customer will be eager to buy them together. If they are unmatched, it could lead to a negative perception towards the company.

Pass the message legitimately. The recommendation labels you select should sound natural and pleasing. It should catch their mind like it is an advice from a legitimate hand. Use labels like “Customers who bought this item also bought” or “Frequently bought together” which are the prime examples from Amazon and is being followed by a lot of other marketers.

Selection of items. You should be cautious about what you are choosing as supplementary products. Customers might have already fixed a budget before making the purchase so they won’t be ready to spend double the money. Always choose products which cost less than 20% of the main product. Also keep a limit about the no: of items you are listing. An overwhelmed list could make the customer make them confuse and may even abandon the whole purchase.

Offer only quality products. Don’t intend on clearing out your goods through some cheap sale method. Only attach the product which is of high quality just as the main product. If a customer got a negative feeling about the credibility of the product this will affect your reputation very badly.

Understand your customers clearly. You should get know about their likes and desires before offering the supplementary products. The accessories suitable to be attached to an amateur photographer and a professional one will be different. You can list out the camera case for former and interchangeable lens in the latter case.

The main tip to make your customers delighted is by offering products which they actually seek for. This can, in turn, create a positive perception towards the company. If you are an existing business person having a web store without the idea of cross-selling, remember that you are missing an additional revenue.

Mobile App Techniques & Marketing Trends For 2015

January 20, 2015

We all know that another year has drawn to its end and it has welcomed 2015 with full hands. Mobile app technology is thriving and continuing to evolve year after year. The mobile app markets are evolving their goal from smartphones and tablets to wearable devices and Internet of Things. And it is sure that the app marketing industry is going to strike more in this year.

Let's look into some remarkable app technology trends that you will be facing this year.

Quick developments

As the enterprises couldn’t keep up with the demand of mobile apps, the app companies are getting insisted on developing and launching their products at a faster rate. They are mainly focusing on reducing the development lifecycle and to fasten the release date. This will make us get introduced to a lot and lot apps and products in the mobile app market.

Cloud services

As with the introduction of more and more app devices and products, customers would be forced to check out some technologies which could help them to integrate and sync the apps in all the devices. By using cloud technology, developers can build apps which could be accessed on multiple platforms with the same function.

More security

In the light of the threats faced by mobile and tablet companies, they are lot more alert to the attack of virus and hacking. But still, the reports shows that there will be more loopholes in the security systems which make them vulnerable to attack.

Wearable solutions

More than a concept of usage, people find the wearable techniques as a sign of trend & fashion. These kinds of applications and devices also target health and fitness so there will be people who look into this with extreme seriousness. Reports show that enterprises are focusing on wearable techniques to enhance their efficiency and productivity.

Yet there are thousands of other trends expected to be fall on mobile/tablet apps development in 2015. Be updated about the industry and put in all your efforts to create a better solution each time. Make sure you are also looking from a customer perspective not just from a marketer perspective.

HOW TO MAKE FACEBOOK CAMPAIGN MORE EFFECTIVE?

December 23, 2014

If you are thinking about promoting your business through social networks, first you have to gather knowledge about the endless opportunities it can offer you. Then you should pick the best opportunity that will go in line with your business. Just spending a lot of money on campaigns won’t get you the best leads. Even with a limited budget, you can get a handful of potential customers if you are following the right procedures.

Just like you wouldn’t air a radio ad on TV, you shouldn’t promote business in Facebook like how you do on television or magazines. Here you will discover some simple and creative tips to make your Facebook marketing campaign more effective and fruitful.

Come out of the aggressive tone

90% of the people logging on Facebook is to build a friend network and to have a fun time. If you are showing the real marketing face to those people, you wouldn’t last long in such an environment. So it is better to take part in communities and groups where you can mingle with the public and then introduce your services proving that it will help them out. The trust factor is the prime thing you can build up from such an environment. Don’t forget that it is not just these people who would be knowing about your service, word of mouth can bring it to a much wider audience group.

Have a goal in mind

You should be having a clear goal in mind about what you actually want from facebook marketing. For example, if you have a restaurant and you need to increase the sale by 20% in next three months. You can prepare a strategy similar to the one below:

Publish daily posts detailing each day’s special recipe and you may even offer some deals or coupons.

Post pictures of the chefs, the infrastructure or even some customers hanging along with the employees.

Request customers to share their own pictures enjoying food at your restaurant.

Having a well-defined goal can help you to pave the right path for marketing and to track the goal.

Post pattern

Make sure that all the posts you have been doing are non-commercial. If should be in a manner that communicates with people. Also do the updates regularly, never miss out any chance to be a part of follower’s timeline. Write posts which could attract people into it. Include smileys, images and videos along with the text content. Images and videos will always catch more attention than the text content.

Maintain your relationship

It may take some time to get potential followers in facebook. After getting their contact, make sure that you are maintaining the relationship in the best manner. Always do sincere engagement in communities, groups and even in personal messages.

Track the performance

If you have followed the right method of promotion, it is sure that you will be benefited from the effort. track the followers, leads and all other reporting metrics from facebook insights. It can help you to understand your present stand and you can decide on which area needs more improvement.

IMPORTANCE OF DIGITAL MARKETING

September 9, 2014

Technology has put the business in the digital age. The consumption of digital contents across the globe is increasing on a daily basis. Digital marketing has become a vital part of today’s business, and companies have started recognising its importance.

To define digital marketing in simple terms, it is the promotion of brands, products or services of a company with the help of digital media. What makes digital marketing different from traditional marketing is that it involves the use of channels or methods that enable a business or organisation to analyse marketing campaigns and understand what is working and what is not, on a real time basis. The channels which are more closely associated with digital marketing is the internet, others include wireless text messaging, mobile apps, digital television, radio channels etc.

Why Is Digital Marketing Important?

Digital marketing is important not only because of its rapid growth but also because it is essentially the future of marketing. All the traditional marketing methods will soon disappear; digital marketing will replace them all together. Digital media is so persuasive that consumers can have access to information anytime and place they want it.

Some advantages of digital marketing over traditional marketing are:

Digital marketing is more affordable compared to the traditional marketing strategies. An e-mail or social media campaign can transmit the same message for less money than a TV-ad or newspaper advertisement. Also, social media campaigns can reach a wider audience anywhere in the world.

Easier to track the results. Digital marketing helps to track the result of a campaign on a real time basis, which helps to plan the strategies more effectively and make changes instantly.

The number of consumers. Traditional marketing has lost a huge amount of consumers. Even people have started to access their newspaper through i-pads or tablets. A recent study of UK National Statics shows that more than 82% of UK adults went online in the first three months of 2011.

Digital Marketing – Encouraging Facts and Figures

The Global Digital Statistics provides the following facts which encourage digital marketing:

• 2.5 Billion People are online.

• 1.8 Billion are on social networks.

• Top social networks have added 135 million more users in 2013.

• Facebook now has 1.184 Billion Users

• There are 6.5 Billion mobile subscriptions globally.

• Around 40% of the world population has an internet connection today. In 1995, it was less than 1%. The number of internet users has increased tenfold from 1999 to 2013. The first billion was reached in 2005, the second billion in 2010. The third billion will be reached by the end of 2014.

Future Trends to watch

■-Email with social sharing will boost click-through rates more than 150 percent.

■ Social media marketing budgets will double over the next five years.

■ Pay Per Click budgets will increase more than 70 percent.

■ More than 70 percent of press releases will include images.

The above figure shows that Asia and Europe stand top on the list and others are on an upcoming stage. Undoubtedly the users are increasing day by day which increases the scope of digital marketing every day.

As traditional marketing strategies are going nowhere, the scope of digital marketing is increasing regularly. It is expected that in 2014 visually attractive content, contests, facts and figures are going to be on the rise. In the recent times, all the major MNC’s like Infosys, TCS, IBM, Jellyfish etc are hiring digital marketing specialists to boost their marketing strategies. It is now clear that the digital age has arrived and it’s time for those who have not yet adapted to the new way of marketing, to open themselves to the new way of interaction.

NEW TRENDS & UPDATES IN WEB DESIGN

New updates in web design trends will come out every month. What are the features of a successful website that make these days? Here is a list of what you have always on your site.

1. Flat User Interface

The combination of interactive design involves in a flat user interface. Light colours are mainly used in flat user interface design. Flat UI is here in the same position and it keeps developing. It will remain in the top position of the web design trends for several years. Successful businesses like Apple and Microsoft are still using it, they cannot afford to ignore it.

2. Card Design

Pinterest is the best example for card design website and most of the web designers are inspired by these types of websites. Creation of title like elements is led to these type of websites. They are very interactive with visitors and easy to pin, share, comment or engage in other ways.ways.

3. Video Content

Video creation is not an expensive and difficult one. Videos can help to spread your business, products and services to the wide area. The video have a fast and exciting way to get the message can be transmitted and it is more effective. Most of the web designers successfully used video promotion.

4. Storytelling

websites are mainly created with images and text, if you tell your own story in a more interesting way, then you have the chance to get more readers and visitors on your site.

5. Personal UX

Every major website including Netflix and YouTube are using this strategy. To create custom content, you should use cookies. This method can help to provide fresh and relevant content and get more returning visitors than presenting the same content.

6. Mobile Design

The present internet era, most people accessing the web through mobiles, smart phones and touch pads. Businesses those who have without a mobile friendly website, it's very inconceivable to the visitors. Mobile-friendly websites must be designed mainly for the small screen, allowing easy navigation in large tactile buttons, and displays only the necessary information and the contents of the user’s needs.

Why a professional E-bay shop design is important for better sale?

August 18, 2014

Each year people increasingly buy via e-commerce websites. If you want to increase your online sales, it is important to consult with a new strategy to attract new customers. Shopping malls attract more customers because the main reason is people can stand out from the crowd and rush. Shops in the mall decorate with variety and attractive designs that make people notice a shop. For an e-Bay shop design, we follow the same principle. If you are intent to show that your company is special and that it offers outstanding products, then an original website design is an unavoidable factor. If you wish to update your eBay site, you should customise your logo, banner and top navigation bar of the head section.

eBay footer design and promotion part are also very important. All these features can make a big impact for your customers – even the smallest detail might make the customer can choose your shop instead of a competitor. eBay offers only plain text templates can tedious and not happy for customers. Clients are now used impressive stores that visualise the propositions with an attractive look. Your mission is not only to make your site look good but to exceed the expectations of your customers and beat competitors with a unique design.

Although it sounds difficult, you cannot make the effort to try to visualise your eBay page. Experienced web design company can help you with the best results that add more value to your site. It is clear that e-commerce store is the future of retail – design the best website is important for a successful business. If you are a constant seller on eBay, then you should be investing in a professional eBay store design for your growing business.

To help with your eBay shop design our expertweb designers London have put together important tips to help result in a professional store design.

Add a professional company logo. This gives a good first impression of your eBay store, and gain potential customers.

Include a clear and well-written description of the store so that visitors know what you are selling.

Put your products at the top of the web page store. Visitors can see your products first.

Make sure the background and font colour good contrast. Your visitors want information clearly and quickly to read, so you avoid colours make it difficult to read.

Use a single background colour, to keep the product images crystal clear and also maintain consistency in your eBay listing.

How to enhance your Online Web Presence with a Web Development Company

April 29, 2014

The year 2012 has been a milestone year for the internet. It was in this year that Asia reached its billion internet users and Europe its five hundred million online users. Also, last year witnessed, around fifty-one million new websites being published in the online world. Thus the importance to invest in a professional website designing company has not only become essential but also a key element of your company’s internet marketing strategy. For a novice, it becomes very difficult to understand the benefits that he and his company would enjoy when they invest in the reputed service of a web development company like Design Direct UK. Below for your conveniences are a few essential benefits discussed, which you would enjoy when you invest in the services of a web development company.

One stop destination for all your website solutions

A reputed web design company would have an array of services, which your company could enjoy once it invests in its reliable services. The web designers London who have years of experience in web development would help you to develop the perfect website, which would have its unique online presence. You can be assured that the total web development project from the stage of conception to the final implementation and publishing of the website in the online world would be undertaken by them. You can be assured to receive high-quality work from the company’s end.

Optimise your website with SEO techniques

A good web designing company would help you to incorporate the SEO elements in your website from the very beginning when your website architecture is being developed. SEO techniques when incorporated in your website would help you in many ways which are:

Attract the accurate online customer segment towards your website. This would lead to the growth of online traffic for your website, once it has been published.

Increases the brand visibility of your company, once your website starts being featured in the top website search list of every search engine.

Both the above elements would help your online business grow considerably in a few weeks time.

Some of the other SEO methods used to enhance your website design would be like keyword density, creating external and internal links in your website.

Enjoy a hassle free experience at great service rates

You are new to online business and do not understand the various technologies and strategies that are essential to make your website enjoy great online visibility. Thus when you invest in the services of web designing company, you are investing your website development in their secure and experienced hands. In return, you enjoy a hassle free experience and concentrate on other issues that need your immediate attention. Also, these web designing and development companies have great service rates and do not burn a whole in your pocket.

Take a quick decision now and choose a web designing company that would help you to develop a website which would become very popular on the internet quickly. This would be a very good business decision from your end and you would enjoy its benefits in times to come.

How not to annoy your E-Commerce Website Visitors?

March 7, 2014

While analysing your website online traffic with Google analytics on a daily basis, you wonder what would be your business growth percentage, if all your online visitors could be converted into your permanent customers. But an e-commerce expert would help you to understand that an average website conversion rate for an e-com website is 3% only. This percentage varies from domain to domain. For example, the average conversion rate for a financial service website is 10% and for educational services is 8% only.

But many website experts are of the opinion that your website might have the presence of a few elements which could annoy your online visitors when they log into your website and you unknowingly are losing out on considerable online business. Here it becomes essential that you use the services of an e-com designing company based in London or from any location around the world, identify the problem areas and quickly remove them from your website immediately. For your convenience, we have identified a few common ones and make you aware of them.

Web Pages in your website take very long to load

In the age of updated technology, you are killing your chances of enjoying good online sales, if your web pages take more than 15 seconds to load. Here the website design specialist can check what are the reasons behind your web pages being slowly refreshed and immediately offer you solutions in this regard. A very common error here is that your web page might have heavy video or online ads which cause the web page to take time and when loading it. Your online visitor has a few seconds to decide whether it would engage in an online transaction or not with your e-com website. You are thus making things difficult for him and you are testing his patience, as he waits for your web pages to be loaded on your website. Various website development technologies are available today and you can use it to develop a web page which can be refreshed in ten seconds and help you to enjoy a sales closure immediately.

Use accurate product data in your website

When online visitor logs into your website, he is looking for specific product and various data associated with it. Thus your product description should be crisp, contain the basic details and also additional data which would help him to decide whether he would invest in the product or not. Here you should also maintain accurate inventory details and specify clearly the price of the product. Inconsistent data in these areas would make them lose trust on you and you would have a good customer walking into your competition website and closing sales there.

Posting customer reviews

You might be sensitive regarding posting customer feedback on your website. But this decision could make you lose considerable online business. You must understand that your customer is very well informed and conscious about the product and your website services before he finally places an order in it. When he reads customer feedback on your website, you are actually helping him to make the decision to close the deal in your website. This would also indicate that you give customer opinion significant importance too. Thus connect with your customers, engage and post feedback from them on your website.

In the end, create a simple check out process for the customer is mandatory. If the process is complicated he might just hang up and not make the sales closure which is so important for your sales team. The basic golden rule here is not annoying your customers but treat them well and they would make your e-com website an overnight success in no time.

3 Essential Elements to make your E-commerce Website Sucessful

March 4, 2014

In 2013 only 10% of the total global retail shopping was done online. Retail and online marketing experts are of the opinion that in 2014, this percentage is going to double by end of this year. Both new and old e-commerce companies have begun to pay more attention to improve their shipping process so that the customer receives his goods on time and enjoys an enhanced shopping experience.

Infographics data on the internet has indicated that 90% of the total online customers are influenced in their buying decision in the first ninety seconds they spend in your e-com website. Therefore, it is essential for you as an e-com website owner to integrate these essential elements on your website which would help in enjoying a higher percentage of customer conversion ratios, than your competition.

Below we have tried to decode a few essential elements in an e-com website, which helps them enjoy online success throughout the year.

Developing a friendly customer policy

When you log into a popular e-com website on the web, you would notice that there is the presence of data clarity on their websites. Every process, policies, payment, shipment and customer services data is very clearly mentioned. This helps the online visitor to quickly understand the nature of transaction he would need to undertake and creates a trust, which helps him to make a sales closure immediately.

The more you develop customer friendly policies for your online visitor, solve the problems they face, your e-com website would enjoy repeat sales and also a positive word of mouth among your online existing customer. This would help you to enjoy more new customers on a daily basis, than any other form of online business marketing strategies.

Implement a crisp product description along with high-quality images

You have less than a minute to impress your online visitor; therefore you should take this challenge very seriously. When your website designers design your e-com website, you must inform them to make the product descriptions short and crisp.

A high-quality image and a video (demonstrating the use of the product) in the product description area would help you to encourage your online visitor to close the sales in your e-com website fast within a few minutes.

All the above elements would help your potential online visitor understand the features of the products, answer his queries and map it with his needs. Then he would be convinced to invest in the product immediately.

Easy Navigation Features

It has been estimated that when an online visitor visits a website, he has the intention to buy a specific product in mind. When he does not find the product within a minute, he logs into another website. Whether you are an e-com website owner in London or in Copenhagen, you would want your online customer to enjoy enhanced user experience when shopping on your website.

Thus your website should have features like responsive web page layouts. Search features, contact details and clear activity buttons, which would guide the online visitor in your website, when he is making his online purchase. In fact, his shopping experience should be hassle-free and this would ensure that he would come back to your e-com website again and also recommend it strongly in his inner circles.

You as a website owner should also develop a habit to study your competition, use Google Analytics to study your daily online traffic and incorporate all the essential elements that would make your e-com website a leader in its market segment. This would involve a lot of hard work from your end but once it is implemented you can relax and enjoy your online success in days to come.

How to get back your Online Visitors Immediately?

March 3, 2014

Your website’s performance on the internet is determined by the ranking it enjoys in any search engine’s top rated website list. As an apparel online store owner, you would want your website to enjoy great online visibility. You are aware of the simple fact that online visitors do not have much time. They log into the first few websites, on the first page of a search engine’s search list and make their online purchases quickly.Therefore if you currently experiencing poor traffic in your apparel online store, it becomes mandatory that you employ an SEO company in North London and get your online business back with a bang. These professional web designers from North London would offer the following SEO elements and integrate these elements into your website design. Some of these SEO elements used by them are as follows:

The SEO expert team would accurately tag all the web pages in your website. Each web page would enjoy a minimum of two tagged keywords. Otherwise, your web page would get over optimised.

When developing a website design with the expert web design London team, the web designer’s expert in various SEO methods would emphasise the use of external quality links which come from other popular external websites. If you have a good percentage of external links in all your web pages, the search engine would have a good impression regarding your online content. It would thus rate your website high in the top rated website list, for any given search related to your domain.

These web designers understand the significance of using text links in your website design. This small technique would help the spider or the crawler of any search engine, locate your website faster and place it on the top rated website list.

Using guest blog posting regarding your online store, in various popular websites that enjoy heavy online traffic, is a great tip that many reputed webs designers use in their website design. By using these guest blogs the expert web designers understand that they are creating awareness among prospective customers regarding your online store. This would in return create a positive growth in your website traffic and encourage good sales closures for your sales team.

The web design company from North London would also create social widgets for bookmarking in your website design. This would help to increase the visibility of your website in the online world, within a few days.

With an effective support from a good web designing company which integrates SEO element into your website design, you can solve all your poor online traffic problems immediately. You would perceive these changes in your website within a few days, as the online traffic in your website increases and your business would enjoy a new online brand image and great sales growth in a matter of few weeks. Your perseverance and hard work in choosing an accurate web designing company to solve your poor online traffic problems would pay off, in the long run.

How to Choose the Right E-bay Business Model For Your New E-bay Store?

February 25, 2014

In the various press released in January 2014, eBay company has shown a sharp increase in their revenue profit by 14% in 2013, when compared to their business in 2012. Being a regular buyer on eBay for some time, you find the idea quite challenging of having your online store on eBay.

An e-Bay expert would help you to understand that one of the most significant factors that you would need to decide on is what E-bay business model do you implement in your store in order to enjoy an easy online business success.

At a superficial level, this would seem very simple but a closer inspection would make you understand, that there are various factors that you would need to consider before you take the correct decision.

What are the factors to be considered when choosing a business model for your eBay store?

Competition in the online world is cutthroat and your online store has just a few minutes to grab the attention of its online visitor and convince it to have a sales closure. But here you should also understand what business model work for one popular store might not work for you. A

n eBay design expert would advise you to choose a business model which is appropriate for your business and give you great ROI in no time. He would further help you to understand a few important factors that you need to consider before choosing your business model which are:

What are the business objectives in setting up an online store?

When you have decided to start your eBay shop, you have to understand the basic objectives you have in mind when you want to establish your online store. Here you also need to make a realistic study as to how you are going to start this business and then plan the various business strategies you have in mind for implementing them in your store.

You might not have the essential experience in the starting your eBay store but you could be helped in this matter by endorsing the services of reputed London designing company who would advise you on which business model to choose for your eBay store and how to customise it. These fundamental basics would help your online store to grow in the long run.

What is the cost of setting up your online stores?

When setting up your online store you would be aware of the budget you have in hand. Depending on your budget you would have to decide the total expenses that you can incur when setting up your online store. Some business models could be more expensive like Liquidation and Surplus business model than Whole-sale retail or Drop shipping business model. The best business decision here to take is to start with a low overhead business model and then move to a new one when your online sales have earned you good profits after a few months.

Studying your competition’s business

Experts in eBay business observe that many first-time online store owners do not map their competition well, before starting their business. But here it is mandatory that you study their business models and if necessary implement the same in your online store.

In a few months time, you would be patting you’re back for back for this, as your online store would be eating into their online traffic and give your online business a great start.

In the end, it can be stated that nothing is impossible, all you need is expert guidance and make the correct decisions which would catapult your eBay shop business into levels of success you have never witnessed before.

HOW TO ENJOY A SUCCESSFUL E-BAY SHOP BUSINESS

February 12, 2014

The current economy is slow and there are many people who have lost their jobs. Among these people, many online entrepreneurs have been born and they no longer do conventional jobs but instead, enjoy and grow their eBay shop business. Like any business, there are a few basic reasons that make a few eBay stores more popular and successful than the rest. On a closer analysis, you would find out that these online store owners focus on a few simple things in their online stores. Below we have tried to decode their success formula which would help many new online store owners like you enjoy great online business when these principles have been incorporated in your online store.

Using accurate imaging in your online store

When you log into a successful eBay store, you would immediately realise why it enjoys heavy online traffic throughout the day. The simple secret here is the ample usage of accurate images in their online stores. Most online visitors do not have much time to read the product description’s in the text. Therefore when an expert uses a design in your online store, do mention that you would want to use appropriate images when describing your product. This simple decision would help you to reach out to your customers and enjoy great sales growth immediately.

Understand your competition

Before you start your new eBay store it is essential you thoroughly understand what your objectives are starting your online store. Once you have identified your basic business objectives, the next step would be to study competition. Here you should log into popular eBay stores and check how they organise their daily business like what are their fast moving products and understand their bidding process. Once this has been learnt you can implement it in your online store and receive quick online success in no time.

Get yourself acquainted with shipping

One of the best ways to keep your customer happy is to ship their purchased products to them on time. A shipment delivered on time would not only show your professional approach but would also help you to enjoy repeat business from the same customer. Here you need to understand the shipping cost involved when you price your product for sale and also select the best shipping method that could be used for your online store.

Adding SEO element in your online store

Like any online web content, the element of SEO cannot be ignored when writing the online content in your eBay store. You can request the services ofaLondonweb designing company who specialise in customising your eBay stores. These experts would use simple Search Engine Optimisation methods like superior online content writing, related keywords and quality videos in your online store. These elements would help your online store to become more search engine friendly and you would also enjoy higher search rankings in their search engine pages.

Focus on the needs of your customers

When you have just started your online store, your customers have to be satisfied on a daily basis, if you want your online store to move to the next level. Therefore you would need to have an effective customer cell, which urgently solves your customer problems immediately. There should also be multiple options for payment that would ensure that your online customer buys the product that he wants from your store only. Otherwise limited payment options would make the customer move to another store and make the sales closure which belonged to you.

When you follow these basic secrets observed by successful eBay entrepreneurs in your new online store, success would be yours in a matter of few weeks. This would just be the beginning of your career as a successful online entrepreneur and many accolades would follow soon.

GREAT SEO TRENDS OF 2014

February 12, 2014

The year 2013 was an important year for SEO business. It has been estimated that currently, 22% of the world’s total population own smartphones. This phenomenal growth among smartphones users all over the world has created havoc in many segments of the online business, where website owners realised a simple truth that their websites had to be compatible with mobiles or smartphones.

Otherwise, they would lose a considerable portion of business among people who used smartphones to surf the internet. Google has also made a few changes in its algorithm and a seasoned web expert would mention that if you want to enjoy a successful online business, you would need to adapt your website to the current changes and follow the best SEO practices to keep your website optimised.

The emergence of superior online content in websites

Google’s Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird updates have changed our perception regarding online web content. In order to give its users more enhanced searching experience, Google is paying great attention to superior online content in websites and videos which enjoy good quality. Early SEO techniques like linking and using multiple keywords in your website are no longer relevant. In fact, after its various updates, Google is penalising websites that have stuffed their websites with keywords and used links to achieve top rankings in their search engine page rankings. The current trend now is to use specific keywords or phrases which are related to nature. This would also help your website to enjoy a better ranking in various search engine page results and your website would thus enjoy a better online traffic on a daily basis.

Flexibility in website designing

The power of a Smartphone user in the online world cannot be ignored now. More and more websites are being developed which are compatible with various smartphones available today. Thus web-designing experts from North Londonlike their global counterparts in New York or Singapore are developing websites which give the users' website designs which enjoy superior quality and easy navigation features. This helps these smartphones users quickly find the things they want on the website and the enhanced user experience makes them come came to their favourite websites many times more. As a website owner you would want your customer to be more and more engaged in your website and the more time he spends on your website, the chances of enjoying a sales closure is much higher. Your brand value would also get enhanced in the long run, due to this.

The growth of strong partnership between SEO and Social Media

Competition is very tough in the online world and it has become essential for every business owner that they should understand their customer better. The tools of social media like Google+, Facebook and Twitter have attracted people towards them in millions. A successful website designing company would ask its website designers when developing a website to integrate these social media tools in them. Then with the support of their SEO expert’s website owners would devise online marketing strategies in these social media tools which would help the companies of these websites understand the pulse of their customers and develop their company’s products which are tuned to the needs of their customer. Continuous engagements with their customer’s thru social media tools would help them yield more benefits for their business in the long run.

SEO in 2014 would continue to evolve rapidly giving birth to new techniques and updating old SEO methods with new elements. But a website owner in order to remain ahead in competition has to concentrate on improving its online web content and understand the needs of its customer. These twin insights would catapult them to levels of success that they have never tasted before.

What are the Basic Components of a Website

February 6, 2014

When you go for a client meeting, you do check yourself in the mirror to ensure that you are well dressed and have taken the necessary steps to create a positive first impression. Have you ever wondered what do your online customers think about your website, when they visit it for the first time? Do they stay in it for a few minutes or immediately type the URL of your competition’s website and make a sales closure there.

A webdesigning expert would explain that a popular website is not just all about having an attractive website design but it contains various website components which interact and combine to create a positive first impression in the eyes of its first time, online visitors. You should be aware of these basic components of a website which are explained below for your convenience.

Basic Components of a Website

1. Front End Components of a Website

When you log into a website, the first things that you view are its front end elements. The various web pages that you view use various updated technologies like HTML5, JavaScript and CSS. The front end of a website also has specific page layout and a navigation menu, which clearly depicts the way the web pages in the website are collected and displayed when you view them.

Most web pages would also contain your company’s logo and various videos and images that attract the attention of the online customers into your website. These above elements combine to create an effective graphic design for your website which gives your website a professional finesse that most online visitors enjoy when they interact in your website.

2. Online Web Content

The various updates undertaken by Google have increased the relevance of superior online content in a website. If you are looking to increase your online website presence, you would need to assess your current online content quality. In fact, if you have excellent online content and good external links in your website, there are high chances that search engines would rank your websites in their top rated website search page more often than before. Thus more and more website owners like you are paying great attention to use related keywords on their websites and they are supported in this endeavour by the website designers who strategically place them in various web pages in the website.

3. Back-End Components of a Website

Web sites now days are very interactive and give online visitors an enhanced user experience. The visitors in a website are encouraged to comment on things they like about the website and also mention the areas where the website could improve on. These data inputs from the online visitor’s are stored in a comprehensive database which is an important back end component of a website. In fact, many popular websites have their own customer login details and all these details are stored in a powerful database which is connected with the front end elements in a website.

4. Content Management System

An effective CMS would help your website to be updated without having to edit its various HTML and you can also change the web pages regularly. This simple process would help you to hold the attention of your online customers from Londonor any other part of the world.

Other essential components in your website are your website domain’s name, the type of web hosting service you use and the various security systems used in your website. By understanding these website components, you are now more equipped to understand how you can use your website to achieve your business objectives in the new days of 2014.

3 Web Designing Mistakes that Small Business Website Owners should Avo

February 4, 2014

You have been a website owner for your small business unit for some time now. Are you aware of the current trends in web designing? In the last two years, the web has become more powerful like never before. More and more web designing experts are using a variety of images to attract their potential online customers into the websites developed by them. This phenomenal change has lead to web pages becoming heavier from 1.28 MB to 1.7 MB. The time is ripe to create wonderful attractive web designs using updated technology like CSS3 and HTML5support with fast speed of the internet. You should as an owner of a website for your small company understand that your website is an integral part of your branding and marketing tool. You have to attract your online targeted customers and sell your company’s product. If you are not aware of this simple concept then you are making a few mistakes which most small business website owners make and this affects their online business in a big way.

Do you know your targeted customer segment?

Most small business website owners in their haste to develop a website and publish it on the internet, forget to do their basic homework related to their customers. Every website has its own targeted customers which may or may not be your customer segment. Thus before you undertake your website development, you have to spend some time to understand your customer segment and analyse your competition’s website too. Once this basic data has been researched, you can then seek the help of web designers from North Londonand they would help you with specific designs that would attract your targeted online customers. These small fine nuances would also help you to create a good online traffic into your website.

Helping your online customers with their buying decision process

Have you ever analysed minutely whether your website clearly outlines the next course of actions that your online visitors should undertake, once they have logged into your website? You as an owner of your website have to decide that what you want your online website visitors to do like contacting your customer cell to buy your products, subscribe to your weekly emails or use the search button to search and shop for their chosen product. You just have a few precious seconds to impress them and if your website designis not doing that, you should be geared to handle trouble in your website paradise. Thus it is essential here that you use the advice of a website designing company and help your online customers with their online business decision process and tell them what specific actions they need to undertake when they log into your website.

Be aware of the rates that you are paying for your web designs

Since you are new to online business, there are high chances that you are not much aware of the various rates related to website designing. It would be a very good idea to speak to a few professional web designing companies who understand your objectives and then choose one that is most suitable for your small company’s budget. You should ensure that you receive quality website designs supported by value-added services from your chosen professional website development company.

Once you avoid making these simple mistakes that most small company website owners make, there is great online success waiting for you in your online business segment. It is essential that you understand the power of your website to attract your online customers and do the right things for it to enjoy great online growth in no time.

How to get Acquainted with the 2014 Latest Trends in Web Development?

January 23, 2014

It has been estimated that there are over seven billion people staying on our planet. Around 2.4 billion people use the internet on a regular basis. This simple data emphasises the importance of having a positive online presence for each and every website owner, no matter whatever might be the objectives of the website owner.

Thus, experts in the field of Web designing have to constantly update themselves with new trends in their area and this would help them to stay ahead of an extra step from their competition. Like any new year, 2014 has its share of new trends which are visible in the sphere of web development. Some of these major trends are described below.

The Growing Popularity of Flat Design

The minimalist approach to website designing was a major trend last year. This same trend has now been interpreted into a concept which is known as flat design by web designers all over the world. The age of Flash technology and too much clutter has come to an end and this has been replaced by clean, simple and modern flat design’s which conveniently conveys the objectives of the website owner to its targeted online customers. The aim of web designing experts is to use fewer clusters in their website, make use of white space and give the user of the website an enhanced viewing experience. This experience helps him to take a better decision when deciding to invest in a product from your website.

Greater usage of better quality images in various areas of website development

The impact of an appropriate image is more powerful that a few lines written on a website. It has been proved that an accurate image can say a thousand words to an online surfer and the surfer immediately connects with it. In 2014 web developers from Enfield like their global counterparts would implement high-quality images in their website development and this would help their client’s website to easily connect with their online visitors. These website development experts also have to maintain affordable pricing, faster loading speed for the web pages for their client’s website. Once these factors have been taken care of the absence of heavy online traffic for a website, it would be a thing of the past. The beautiful clarified images used in a new website would attract visitors by thousands into it and the sales team would be very happy with its sales conversion.

The steady growth of videos over text in website development

If you clearly analyse various popular websites over the years, you would notice a very visible new trend in them. This trend is the use of videos in a website to communicate with their targeted online customers. Most website owners have realised that time is a major constraint and they have to communicate with their prospective customers immediately. They thus use videos to demonstrate products, convey various online campaigns to directly engage with their online customers. Such powerful connection would not be enabled by a few text lines. In the new websites developed in 2014, there is a trend to use a video on the landing page and capture the attention of the online visitor to the website immediately. Otherwise, he might lose interest and move to your competitions website’s and make the sales closure which was yours.

All these new trends in web development indicate that the customer is still the king and various new ways are being developed to attract his attention and help him make a good decision to invest in your company’s website products. In case you are planning to own a website, it would be a wise idea to use one of the above trends in web development and enjoy an early online success.